I actually have always been looking forward to retirement

Make Way for Tomorrow

Many years ago, I saw “Grave of the Fireflies” with my parents and then vowed to never see the film ever again. In retrospect, I think I don’t even really like the film – it was just over the top tragic and victimizes the Japanese in a manner I do not quite approve of (very much unlike “Letters from Iwo Jima” which I wholeheartedly approved of). “Grave of the Fireflies” feels a little bit like this article I saw quite awhile ago in which reporters described how both Israeli and Palestinians are using pictures of killed children to prove how cruel the other side is. It’s just unnecessarily sad.

I should also vow to never see “Make way for tomorrow” again because it is so, so sad! But in reality, I think that the film is too precious to never see again. None of Ozu’s movies contain even a fraction of the truth that McCarey’s transports – and we are talking about Ozu, the master of “youngsters are all impolite and worthless“ stories. While I found “Tokyo Monogatari” highly annoying, I absolutely loved this film. I don’t think it has a single weakness, except perhaps that it is very one-sided in how it focuses on only a single couple. But for “Make way for tomorrow”, that is definitely a strong point. Orson Welles said “it would make a stone cry”, some Imdb commenter (who usually don’t have that much interesting to say) wrote “Romeo and Juliet are nothing compared to Pa and Ma Cooper”. I agree – this is probably the most beautiful and absolutely most tragic love story of all times, and it is even more powerful to see that the protagonists of this love story are not young and beautiful, but just… human.

Sadly enough, the film is perfectly realistic. I have seen plenty of other people act like the children in this film, and among the people I know – parents of friends, or friends of my parents – only a small handful are actually truly taking care of their parents. I want to be prepared to do better in case my parents ever got into a situation like this.

Bottom line: I don’t think I have ever seen a more tragic film in my life. I want to make everybody I know watch the film (except Gorp of course, who recommended it to me). It’s just so great and sad.