The Difference

Tokyo Story  is by far the film that I have had the hardest time watching.  Although we were warned about it, I did not expect it to be as slow and as calm as it was.  My expectations were completely off my only experience with asian cinema has been Fallen Angels which was rather intense throughout the film.  

Looking back I should have not generalized the films and also considered the amount of time between making these films.  However, they juxtapose each other perfectly.  One being very zen like and one being exhausting to the eyes.  

A classic hollywood film and Tokyo Story are very hard to compare to each other.  Tokyo Story creates a sense of realism through its zen practical nature.  It takes a story about something that is not out of the ordinary- parents going to visit their children and then the mother getting very ill and dying- and comments on  how parents and their children's relationship evolve and are changed over time.  It comments on how parents should be proud of their children even if they don't do what they expect.  It takes the relationships and explains how families need to move on.  It also expresses a comment on how even though people may not share your blood ties they can still be considered apart of your family.  

Hollywood cinemas are  very different in the way they create a sense of realism. They create it by showing what the ideal world is and telling the viewer what it takes to have it.  They create "realism" almost by faking it.  A great thing to talk about is that in Tokyo Story the mother dies off screen, I feel like in any classic Hollywood cinema the mother would never die off screen because those are things that are considered to be okay in American/Hollywood cinemas.