The Greatest Film Ever Made...

...is Tokyo Story, directed by the gentle nihilist of Japanese Cinema, Yasujiro Ozu. The honour of promoting the film to the top spot goes to Halliwell film guide.

This is the only Ozu film I have seen so far, but I can't wait to see more. I will write about the film in detail sometime. Till then I will let you read Peter Bradshaw of The Observer:

It is certainly his masterpiece: tender, profoundly mysterious and desperately sad. But its exquisite melancholy is not derived from something esoteric or exotic, but a very real human anxiety, instantly comprehensible. How do we look after our elderly parents as they confront imminent death? How far can we afford to expose ourselves to their secret pain and fear? And when it is our turn to grow old, can we expect our children to share the burden?

This article says, "in many ways he was a pessimist".

In many ways Ozu was a pessimist - he saw life changing for the worse, the Japanese losing traditional values, children tolerating rather than loving their parents.

Actually he was much more than a simple pessimist. He was a nihilist, but his nihilism is not tinged with bitterness or anger at all, rather it reflects a mature, deeper and stoical, although melancholy acceptance of the profound truth of the meaningless and nothingness of life. Although all his films are family dramas, he himself never married or had any children. In fact he was so certain of the futility of everything that he even had the Chinese symbol for nothingness engraved on his tombstone. Now that's what is called living by what you believe in. Great artist. Great man.