"Tokyo Story", directed by Yasujiro Ozu, Japan, 1953. I had the pleasure of watching Ozu's "Tokyo Story" again recently with friends. What really makes this film for me is the honest simplicity of the performances, which can seem almost flat to audiences used to the highly mobile or expressive acting of Hollywood. In this regard I was really most impressed by Chieko Higashiyama, who played the mother in the film. In an American version (God forbid) she'd be played by an actress like Shirley Maclaine or the late Anne Bancroft, and she'd be fascinating, but what you'd be watching is a dynamic Hollywood star at work, not an ordinary mother. Similarly, Setsuko Hara as her widowed daughter-in-law is a study in quiet desperation and altruism, and when you watch her eyes you understand why she spends the film smiling until it hurts. This film is remarkable if only for the way that it's unrepeatable, and though I met some after the screening (at the Fabrica art gallery in Brighton) who admitted boredom, I hope others found that after their initial boredom, they discovered in the film a human truth in the very ordinariness of the characters;

a truth that most other films are not poised or committed enough to portray (Pictured: Cheiko Higashiyama and Setsuko Hara as mother and daughter-in-law respectively in "Tokyo Story")