我出生了，但……

——I was born, but…

Ozu’s movie I Was Born, But... is an undoubted hilarious silent comedy. But speaking of the dark side, Ozu mentioned in an interview:“I started to make a film about children and ended up with a film about grown-ups…”. Movie through a comparison of the hierarchies of the adult world and the hierarchies of the children's world presents both the humor of everyday life and the sad realities of life.
As David Bordwell said, “The film is built around the social use of power.” This film explores the ways the world works. For adults, the determiner is financial, and the social classes. For children, the determiner is physical strength, sparrow eggs, and their father. Ozu reveals us a harsh reality：Not only in the adult's world but also in the children word, that these principles underlie social hierarchies, and the social fabric are the systems in which we must compromise.
   A common misreading by the Western audiences believed this movie is accused the hypocritical in the adult world. In the one hand, “Ozu demonstrates human encounters without judgment. Ouz’s observation of family life and its social decline are respectful.” On the other hands, in this movie, is hard to say children characters are pure innocent. They have their own priorities, different the grownups, children's simply measured by strength. They already live under the rules, just hadn’t understood the unjust hierarchical social customs of the real world yet. The boys define they have the best father during the kids’ arguments. But in the home movies, they saw a different light about their father. Who seem is not an important “somebody” they had worshiped, but as a “nobody” who has to fawn on Taro's father.
       Paternal authority always is an important part in the Asian cultures. “Japanese father was the head of the traditional family system” Without this background, it maybe a little confused for the Western audience how the boys' shifting attitude towards their father. At first, he is an exemplary hero. After the home movies, he is an embarrassing fool. Also, their father realizes he was disappointing his sons. He was so despair, even want dependency on alcohol to numb his sorrow.
      Frame is also an important method to narrative.“Ozu's objects are almost never divorced from narrative or thematic functions in his films.” An obvious symbol such as in this scene Ozu captures father’s sadness through the classic “tatami shot”. When father told mother he didn’t cozy up the boss because he enjoys it, audiences begin to empathies with his shame and panic. Is he hypocrisy? Maybe, but we couldn’t blame him.
“In most Ozu films the structure presumes this "return” and it is this which makes the final reels of these pictures so compelling.” Ozu reproduced a particular scene which the father and the boys walking together in the ending of the movie. They met Taro and father's boss; father struggled about whether or not to greet his boss, the younger brother said, “You’d better say good morning to him.” It’s a similar scene as the earlier at the beginning of the movie. But this time they establish a mutual understanding relationship.
The movie’s final scene is the most perfecting ending I can imagine. The brother admitted Taro’s father is better. Seem the conversation between father and sons made the boys realize what is the reality. In the children world, it takes more strength to accept your dad is better than my dad. After that, the boys began to “cast” on Taro. Everything seems same as before. They were grown up，but still preserving that childish aspect.
When I was watching I was born, but… I feel both of comedy and pathos. Is it comedy? Or, is it tragedy? It seems hard to simply definition. Just like Wim Wenders said, through Ozu’s movies we’ve been seeing all families in the whole word, we see our parents, our brothers and ourselves.

Reference
 David Bordwell, Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema
 Wim Wenders, Mary Zournaz, Inventing Peace: A Dialogue on Perception
 M.E. Lamb, 2003, The role of the father in child development (4th Ed.)
 Kathe Geist, Narrative Style in Ozu's Silent Films
 Donald Richie, Yasujiro Ozu: The Syntax of His Films

主题：开篇前写道，一本留给成人回忆的绘本。这是两小兄弟男孩和父亲生活的绘本。
拍摄角度：整场都是低角度拍摄。像是孩子的视角，孩子是平视的，拍父亲时候是仰视的。
年代：1930s。小孩的校服都是下身短裤，上身穿毛衣或外套，被双肩皮包。电影的每一处都很有质感。是黑白无声电影，依然配有钢琴伴奏。画面晃动、亮闪。
人物：两兄弟老大是由菅原秀雄饰演。上一部小津电影《东京合唱》里也同样饰演家里孩子的老大。这次印象瞬间加深。又出现和父亲顶撞：我不怕你！然后开始摔东西，被父亲抬起腰打屁股。老二则经常时不时摸“老二”，扮孙悟空，表情帅到爆。他们叛逆，可爱，模仿大人双手插兜走路，蹲在地上写毛笔字，和其他小孩干架，对父亲老板的孩子施魔法的那些片段太搞笑了。父亲在老板面前总是低头哈腰，在家里他就是个好父亲。虽然也会在孩子们顶撞他说为什么不能像老板那样给其他人发薪水生气而打他们。但孩子们睡下的时候，父亲他们坐在身旁，眼里有的就是心疼和和对孩子们的期望。
电影之外：小的时候也是过群居生活，当时和一群小孩子一起。院里有一对双胞胎兄弟的家庭。老大叫大龙，额头带有美人尖，个头高，皮肤白皙。老二叫二龙，长的很黑，额头有个月亮，但说话结巴，我们都叫他包黑炭。看上去他们差异很大，但他们的确是双胞胎。那时候姐姐完全是在我们生活世界之外的人，高冷，显得和我们格格不入。我常和他们玩还有院子外的那些小孩，一玩就玩到天黑。他们家门口有个水池，他们爸爸同样是做家具的。水池里之前会泡些木材，后来就废弃了，变得恶臭熏天。我们在冬天玩陀螺，夏天打沙包，围在一起看黑白电视。当时只有房东财主家里是彩电。后来家里买了彩电和游戏机，他们就经常来我家里玩。我们之间也闹脾气，冷战。在我上初二的时候我就搬离了那里，住进了自己的房子，后来就很少再和他们联系。他们依然还住那里，也不知道过了多少年他们才搬离。

小津的影片，结尾我总是最喜欢。
这部也不例外。
当两个小兄弟和爸爸在铁路闸口碰到爸爸的上司时，
主动让还在羞愧中的爸爸去向太郎的爸爸问安，
然后问太郎谁的爸爸厉害。
当太郎屈服于他们平时的淫威违心承认他们的爸爸厉害时，
小兄弟主动承认太郎的爸爸厉害。

然后他们继续对太郎施咒语，让他躺下，
又故意不叫他起来。
温顺的太郎自己爬起来，小伙伴和好如初。

这世界本来就是这样，
你拳头比我硬，我拆九连环可以战胜你；
我拳头比你硬，要去你家看电影也得用鸟蛋交换。
成人世界里通行的标准是货币和武力，
孩童的世界里通行的是武力和鸟蛋，
货币要靠工作和关系赢得，
鸟蛋也要靠爬树和交换攫取，
本质并没有不同。

小孩子因为父亲对比自己弱小者的父亲点头哈腰而伤了自尊，
父亲辛苦营造的伟岸形象崩溃在＂他只会对我们逞威风＂的指责里。
然后，当小孩长大了就会明白，
用点头哈腰交换一些自己需要的东西，没有什么可以指责的，
因为也只是交换而已。
上司需要点头哈腰者的肯定，一如点头哈腰者需要货币的支援，
大家各取所需而已。

这世界本不需要倔强，小孩子的倔强也会变圆融，
然后，这就是成长。