Floating Weeds

Floating Weeds (浮草, 1959) is a Japanese drama directed by Yasujiro Ozu that you can watch online on iFILM. A small kabuki troupe drifts into a coastal town on Kyushu for a run of performances. Their leader, Komajuro, has a private reason for choosing this particular town: a woman from his past lives here, and so does the adult son who has never been told who his father is.

When his lead actress Sumiko finds out, she sends one of the younger performers to get close to the son — not out of attraction, but calculated spite. It doesn't go as planned. The younger woman falls for him genuinely, and Sumiko's scheme starts pulling apart at the seams.

Ozu shot this in color, one of the few times he worked outside black-and-white, and the film carries all the discipline of his mature period: fixed camera positions, silences that mean something, nothing wasted. Ganjiro Nakamura and Machiko Kyo lead. It's a quiet film about people practiced at hurting each other who can't quite manage to leave. Stream Floating Weeds (1959) online on iFILM.