Made in 1936, The Only Son by Yasujiro Ozu reveals many themes he will aboard later in his career, conflicts between generations, misundertandings, poverty, pride, and family issues.
Since Ozu's style has already been discussed I would like to only mention that his naive use of technical "errors" with weird camera angles feels perfectly right here in the telling of The Only Son.
It's the story of a mother and her son gone to high school and ends up working as a night teacher. The mother goes to Tokyo to visit her son who is ashamed of what he has done with his life. He thinks his mother won't be proud of him and regret to have send him to high school.
Slow paced and sometimes a little loose The Only Son announces the main preoccupations of Ozu. Many said that his better period is the post-war era until his death; it is the era where he made his stronger and richest films in ratio. But, The Only Son should have reconsiderations as an early strong film. It is not as moving as Late Spring or Tokyo Story but it's still very interesting and universal in his themes.
It has the Ozu touch and Ozu feel in it. Once again it is a story that involves deep interactions between humans and their values and the main concept of family that populated Yasujiro Ozu's better work.
A Film Retrospective by Michaël Parent
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