Japanese Cinema: Ozu’s Tatami Shot

Ozu behind his camera. ©Benbrigade

Reading Time: 6 minutes.

In the Japanese film industry, a well-known cinematographic technique is the tatami shot. It is a unique style invented by Yasujiro Ozu, in which the camera is placed at a low height, supposedly at the eye level of a person kneeling on a tatami mat.

Yasujiro Ozu, ©Wikipedia

Ozu Yasujirō (小津安二郎 1903 - 1963) was an influential Japanese film director and is widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of the 20th century.

His film career as a director includes silent, black-and-white, and color films produced from the 1920s to the 1960s.  Although he may have filmed genres such as comedy, his best-known works deal with family issues that present the generational and cultural conflicts characteristic of postwar Japan.

The best example of a movie displaying these cultural conflicts is Tokyo Story (tōkyō monogatari 東京物語), which narrates the life of Shukishi and Tomi Hirayama. They are originally from the rural city of Onomichi but decide to make a trip to Tokyo, where their children live. When they arrive at the capital, they realize that their children, Kōichi and Shige, are busy with work and their own families and actually have no time for their parents. The only one who cares about the elderly Hirayamas is Noriko, the widow of their second son Shōji who had died in the war.

Tokyo Story, directed by Ozu Yasujirō 1953 B2 theatrical poster. ©Neonsigh

The film is set in post-war Japan (1953), a few years after the new Civil Code of 1948 had been ratified, which promoted the country’s growth based on capitalist ideals. This gradually influenced old traditions, such as the Japanese family values of belonging and loyalty. Indeed, individuals used to be expected to serve their family’s interest before their own and show preferential treatment to family members. Nevertheless, the plot of Tokyo Story shows us a new side of Japan in which such cultural values are shifting. The film itself is an allegory for traditional institutions like the family remaining the same despite a rapid economic and social change.

Tokyo Story is nostalgic and mundane as well as slow and implicit, but the beauty of this film lies in its composition. The life of the Hirayama family unfolds in front of the viewer; indeed, you feel like you are an intimate part of the family’s conversations.

Shukishi and Tomi Hirayama getting ready for traveling to Tokyo (4:38). ©Tokyo Story

In particular the film’s cinematography is unique and establishes Ozu as the pioneer of what we now call the tatami shot. For a tatami shot, the camera is positioned at a rather low height, imitating the viewpoint of a spectator sitting on a tatami. In Tokyo Story, we can appreciate many of these shots, for example, when Shukishi and Tomi get ready for their journey to Tokyo (4:38). The camera, placed about 90cm above the ground, remains fixed and allows us to witness an everyday scene as if we were there beside them. Tatami shots invite viewers to simply observe by recreating the position in which a person participates in a tea ceremony. In fact, since the field of vision is extremely limited, this way of filming creates a passive and contemplative mood.

Noriko welcoming the parents-in-law after arriving in Tokyo (15:11). ©Tokyo Story

With the tatami shot, Ozu denies viewers the possibility of identifying with the protagonists directly. He transforms us into the witnesses of his characters’ actions, as we see everything from a close point of view which still retains a certain distance. This feeling is increased by combining the tatami shot with the frontal shot, in which he shows us the actor’s face directly, for example, when Noriko welcomes the parents-in-law after arriving in Tokyo (15:15). The protagonists direct their gaze and their words directly at us. With this, Ozu turns us into the recipient of the character’s words and facial expressions. Behind such shots, there is the will to capture everything in the behavior of its protagonists without the need to take a position. The result is a lack of empathy towards the characters, something peculiar to Ozu’s style. Then, in our eyes, the story becomes more natural and real by letting us enjoy the whole narrative as if we were part of it.

The magic of tatami shots is finding yourself sitting in Japan, experiencing a talk, or welcoming a relative. You feel closer to them as well as to the story itself.

Written by Manuel Jose Flores Aguilar