Iwa ni Hana

I have always thought that the word 苦笑 [kushou] means (by dictionary definition and popular usage):

To smile at something that is bitter to you and look bitter while you smile.

But after watching a dozen films by Ozu Yasujiro (not all in one go but stretched over the space of several years), I am beginning to think that there is another level of kushou. A more subtle kind perhaps. It is namely:

To smile at something that is bitter to you and not look bitter while you smile.

For some reason, I have only spotted that smile in Japanese films so far. You will know that smile instinctively once you have watched enough of them (whether they are directed by Ozu or not, for his influence is lasting and widespread). It is the Kodak smile that you usually only see in advertisements of toothpaste, shampoo, cosmetics or the like. If a shot of the smile were taken out of the context of the film, you might even be fooled into thinking that the smile was induced by joy. But that smile always appears in some tragic context.

The first time I saw it was in Tokyo Monogatari (1953). It was a scene where an old couple visits their daughter-in-law, Noriko. Their son had died some eight years ago and Noriko, by her own choice, never remarried. She keeps to her own way in a rather depressing flat and has a clerical job to support herself. Her in-laws say to her, “The world is full of not very nice things, is it not?” And she smiles and nods. That is the Kodak smile that I speak of. It struck me that although they are talking about how the world is not a very nice place, her smile seems to say otherwise, as though the world is not just a not very nice place after all and there is more to the world than just being not a very nice place, and what that “something more” may be is unspoken and can only be guessed at from her smile.

(more…)