This stuff is actually quite similar to early Hitchcock. I haven’t seen enough silent Ozu to know when he first found his footing, but according to this evidence the first films were facile unto utter mastery, with a lightness of technique and heart that must be youth, and that kind of belies or contrasts what would follow. Every camera placement, movement, cut is exactly right. The result is extraordinarily textured, tactile—plastic, as the Soviets might say. It may well be a result of my inattentiveness and ignorance, but I find that the subject is somewhat elusive. Elusive, that is, until that candy episode comes along, which quite leaps out at one, and is very touching. Here Ozu accomplishes that great Charle Chaplin trick, which is to stick funny stuff into the most serious of material, and make them both work equally, and on their own terms.