The terrible state of Japan’s silent film era has long been reported and discussed, where a combination of time, humidity, earthquakes, and American fire bombings reduced a legacy of literally thousands of films to a collection of less than 100 extant works (the number I’ve seen quoted most often is 70). While this has almost entirely erased the work of Japan’s first filmmakers, it has also badly affected that second generation whose later films may remain but whose early formative works are lost forever.

The master filmmaker Ozu Yasujiro would seem the appropriate poster child for that second generation. While he remains a significant contributor to global cinema via his films Tokyo Story (1953), Floating Weeds (1959), and An Autumn Afternoon (1962), most of his earliest films have been lost. We know his first film was Sword of Penitence in 1927, but we cannot see it. Nor can we see 11 of his first 12 features.

A Mother Should Be Loved, a silent Ozu melodrama released in 1934, can be seen but only in a compromised fashion. The first and final reels of the film have been lost, leaving modern-day viewers to make do with the remaining 71 minutes from the middle. Captions fill the audience in on the missing segments, which I suppose is better than not being able to see this film at all.

The film focuses on Chieko (Yoshikawa Mitsuko) whose husband unexpectedly dies, leaving her to care for their two sons. Several years later the eldest son Sadao (Obinata Den) discovers that Chieko is not his mother at all: his birth mother died when he was a baby, and his father remarried. This puts a growing strain on Sadao and Chieko’s relationship, as well as between Sadao and his half-brother Kosaku (Mitsui Koji, credited here as Mitsui Hideo).

Domestic melodramas about women’s experiences were particularly popular in Japan during the 1930s, which led to this particular film being made. As his career developed Ozu took a more direct hand in plotting and co-writing his films; that is not the case here, and the result is something that feels less richly developed or insightful than his modern-day fans might expect. One can see Ozu’s specific directorial style emerge, however, and on that front there is a certain fascination to be found in this early picture. As with An Inn in Tokyo, an Ozu silent drama I have previously reviewed, he often inserts dialogue intertitles not between shots of the character speaking, but between shots of the character being spoken to. This allows their reactions to be visible, and increases the effect of each scene.

Yoshikawa Mitsuko presents a remarkably subtle and understated performance here, compared to the more heightened acting that typically accompanies silent film. It is also worth watching Mitsui Koji in such an early role; he would later perform in Carmen Comes Home (1951), Early Spring (1956), The Lower Depths (1957), Woman in the Dunes (1964), and Red Beard (1965).

This is, ultimately, far from essential Ozu. It does offer a precious glimpse at his early career, however, and remains a strong example of the sorts of domestic dramas that flooded Japanese cinemas at the time.