Benshi Performance by Midori Sawato

(Umarete wa mita keredo). I Was Born But... is a comedy, but a "serious" one. A typical wage earner moves to the suburbs with his typical wife and two delightfully atypical sons, aged eight and ten. The boys pass quickly through the neighborhood rites of initiation, but are confronted with their father's politics of submissiveness when asked to kowtow to the boss's prissy son. The recognition of the falseness of adult behavior, which they at first innocently reflect, then challenge, and finally must accept, marks another sort of initiation for the boys—their loss of innocence. Considered the first of Ozu's great films, I Was Born But... is an early classic of the shomin-geki genre, films about middle-class manners and mores. Donald Richie has written, "In this film, Ozu brought together in almost perfect form the various elements which made up his style, his personal way of looking at the world."

—Judy Bloch

• Written by Akira Fushimi, after an original story written by Ozu under the name James Maki. Photographed by Hideo Shigehara. With Tatsuo Saito, Mitsuko Yoshikawa, Hideo Sugawara, Tokkan Kozo. (92 mins, Silent with English intertitles, Recorded musical accompaniment by Matsuda Film Productions, B&W, 35mm, Courtesy The Japan Foundation, permission Shochiku and New Yorker Films)