A Story of Floating Weeds

Japan   Y. Ozu

This was the 1934 silent version of the story. An itinerant acting troupe washes up in a remote seaside village where the leader fathered a son twenty years before. The inevitable melodrama plays out.

Without sound this still carried the full impact of the drama. His compositions were similar but the B/W created a different, more dramatic tone. All actors, especially the lead were excellent. Criterion commissioned a score which worked well...amazingly enough the film never had a written score...in many venues at the time it was run truly silent.

This differed from the late-career color film in details, not in quality.

9