Criterion Collection (series)

Good Morning

DVD Features:

Product Description:

Two young brothers in suburban Japan demand a television set from their father, and are promptly told to shut up. In protest, the boys take their father at his word and cease speaking, refusing to say even "good morning" to the neighborhood ladies, causing a neighborhood quarrel. This reconfigured remake of Ozu's I WAS BORN, BUT... brings the focus on the dissolution of the family into the realm of the farce, all the while maintaining the sense of sadness present in all of his films.

Plot Synopsis:

GOOD MORNING, a slightly revised remake of his earlier film, I WAS BORN, BUT..., is Yasujiro Ozu's subtle yet madcaped tale of the suburban Japanese family in crisis. The threat comes in the form of a television, demanded by two young brothers and refused by their traditional suburban father. Upon being told to "shut up" in response to their ardent requests for a television, the boys do just that, refusing to speak even the customary small talk of "good morning", so essential to the social structure of Japanese culture. As a neighborhood-wide quarrel results, small vignettes of other miniature crisis of Western culture versus Japanese tradition are played before the camera; an old man is unable to get a job and gets drunk, a grandmother faces her uncaring extended family, a woman is forced to move out of the neighborhood because her morals are in question, etc. These tragi-comic portraits combine to evoke a radiant sense of life and end by displaying the threatened suburbia as a vital society. The boy's refusal to speak catalyzes a sharp and succinct portrait of the importance of the "small talk" and other banal details of everyday life.

Plot Keywords:

Children | Comedy | Family Interaction | Mishaps | Satire | Theatrical Release

Production Notes:

• GOOD MORNING is a remake of the director's own silent comedy I WAS BORN, BUT... (1932).

Cast and Crew: