Ozu's silent films are interesting because they are so much more western in tone than his ever-so-Japanese sound films. The young director of silent films was much more playful than the filmmaker he became. Indeed, I can see the young Ozu hanging out on the street with a young Truffaut talking film and chasing girls. In what would come to be known as a very French-New-Wave kind of way, young Ozu was extremely meta-cinematic, constantly examining the role of his chosen medium in society and wearing his (surprisingly Hollywood-centric) influences on his sleeve. Much of this particular film is a cute-kid comedy, no more, no less. But it has one remarkable scene in which business men screen movies they've playfully, and not always respectfully, made of each other. The illusion of cinema is, for young Ozu, the revealer of reality, rather than its mystifier.
Review of I Was Born, But...
