Wim
Wenders says, "If in our century something sacred
still existed… if there were something like a sacred
treasure of the cinema, then for me that would have
to be the work of the Japanese director, Yasujiro
Ozu.He made fifty-four films.Silent films in the Twenties,
black-and-white films in the Thirties and Forties,
and finally colour films until his death on December
12th, 1963, on his sixtieth birthday.
As
thoroughly Japanese as they are, these films are,
at the same time, universal. In them, I've been able to recognize all families,
in all the countries of the world, as well as my parents,
my brother and myself. For me, never before and never again since
has the cinema been so close to its essence and its
purpose: to present an image of man in our century,
a usable, true and valid image, in which he not only
recognizes himself but from which, above all, he may
learn about himself.
Ozu's
work does not need my praise and such a sacred treasure
of the cinema could only reside in the realm of the
imagination. And so, my trip to Tokyo was in no way a pilgrimage. I was curious as to whether I still could track
down something from this time, whether there was still
anything left of this work. Images perhaps, or even
people… Or whether so much would have changed in Tokyo
in the twenty years since Ozu's death that nothing
would be left to find.
