Reviews of silent film releases on home video. Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. All Rights Reserved.

A Story of Floating Weeds (1934)

The most successful film of director Yasujirô Ozu’s silent filmmaking career, perhaps of his entire career, is a multilayered tale of class division, aspiration and regret. Reputedly inspired by The Barker (1928), A Story of Floating Weeds (1934) explores the lowly-world of a troupe of traveling actors headed by a patriarchal Thespian, a supposed star of the Japanese stage, who returns to a small village to perform and to visit old friends.

A beautiful film that is full of warmth, humor and emotion. Beautifully composed, beautifully lit and photographed; this is a film that was clearly created by a master filmmaker.

The film is accompanied by a music score composed and performed by Donald Sosin on a MIDI keyboard that later controlled a MIDI-driven piano in the recording studio, presented in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround sound.

Supplemental material includes audio commentary for A Story of Floating Weeds by Japanese-film historian Donald Richie; Ozu’s color remake Floating Weeds (1959) in a gorgeous 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack and audio commentary by film critic Roger Ebert; a Japanese trailer for the 1959 film; and an insert booklet with notes on the films by Donald Richie and notes on the edition production.

Sight unseen, we highly recommend this home video edition of Ozu’s wonderful film.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region A Blu-ray Disc edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region A Blu-ray Disc edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
This Region A Blu-ray Disc edition is also available directly from . . .

This DVD edition has been transferred in high-definition from a 35mm fine-grain master positive of excellent quality, with some footage transferred from another 35mm print of very-good quality. The main source print features a broad range of greytones, with controlled and detailed highlights and shadows, and excellent image detail. The secondary print is grainier and a bit contrasty, but this source print is utilized to replace only a few minutes of missing or damaged footage. An automatic digital clean-up has performed on the transfer to remove dust, speckling, scratches and other flaws. Some major flaws remain that presumably would have been impossible to remove without creating artifacts or would have been too costly to remove. The resulting HD video master is superb and allows the viewer to enjoy Ozu’s film without many distracting flaws.

The film is accompanied by an optional piano score composed and performed by Donald Sosin on a MIDI keyboard that later controlled a MIDI-driven piano in the recording studio. The film is also presented with optional audio commentary by Donald Richie.

The supplemental material includes Osu’s color remake Floating Weeds (1959) in a gorgeous digital restoration, a booklet with notes on the films by Donald Richie and notes on the edition production, audio commentary on the 1959 film by Roger Ebert, and a Japanese trailer for the film.

We highly recommend this DVD home video edition of Ozu’s wonderful film.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 1 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 1 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
United Kingdom: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 1 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.co.uk. Support Silent Era.