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The centennial of Yasujiro Ozu's birth in 2003 was marked not only by a traveling retrospective but several new films made to honor the great Japanese director. Most of those played exclusively in various festivals, but Cafe Lumiere has finally made its way to the Music Box theater in Chicago, where it opens this Friday.

The story is a combination of contemporary mores and classic Ozu themes. Set in Tokyo, it focuses on a woman named Yoko (the film debut of Japanese pop star Yo Hitoto). Like so many Ozu heroines, she's young and unmarried, while her parents hover nearby, concerned for her future. In a decidedly more modern twist, she's pregnant and has decided to keep the baby but not marry the father. Moreover, she's relatively unconcerned about this situation, thinking that raising a child as a young, single mother won't be too difficult. Needless to say, her parents aren't as confident.

The parents (richly played by Nenji Kobayashi and Kimiko Yo) represent not only the Ozu parental archetypes (steady but silent father, loving but more meddling mother) but the post-war generation caught between the old ways (exemplified in Ozu's movies) and the rapidly changing, urban-centered Japan. This is familiar territory for director Hou Hsaio-hsien, who has made a career of contrasting the young adults of Taiwan with their forebears. And it's natural that he'd be attracted to a story that echoes Ozu in its pacing and emotion (slow and restrained) while focusing on the relative aimlessness of today's generation.

In that sense, Cafe Lumiere doesn't reach the heights of Ozu's marvelous family films, with their carefully calibrated emotions and conflicts. The emphasis here is much more on Yoko and her everyday life. She's a freelance writer, researching the career of a Taiwanese composer who came to Japan in the '30s. One of her best friends, Hajime, runs a small bookstore and spends his free time recording the sounds of trains around Tokyo. Trains are a common theme in Ozu, but they overwhelm Cafe Lumiere. Much of the "action" consists of Yoko walking to, riding, and getting off various trains. This creates some delightful shots: the movie opens with a train passing overhead (a classic Ozu reference), a later moment involves Yoko and Hajime riding trains on parallel tracks. But there's also a sense that not much is happening. The film's real energy comes in the scenes with Yoko's parents, but those are much less frequent. And while Yo Hitoto gives a solid performance, any comparisons with Setsuko Hara, Ozu's great muse, would be decidedly unflattering.

Hou surpasses Ozu in one aspect, though. His use of light is simply unparalleled. Cafe Lumiere's opening scene, which features natural light pouring through diaphanous blouses hung in the window, is exquisitely beautiful. Most interior sequences are similarly lit, with the pale light from the windows softly illuminating the characters and their surroundings. The outdoor sequences are equally relaxed, as Hou uses a naturalistic though striking sound design, full of train noises and falling rain that match the film's mood. Hou also creates framing devices with a contrast between light and dark. In one fantastic moment, Yoko wakes up in the middle of the night and turns on a kitchen light, while Hou's camera placement in the living room uses the dark walls to frame her in a fascinating way.

Unfortunately, this cinematic technique has the effect of distancing the audience from the story. Ozu may have concentrated on medium and long shots (where the camera is placed farther away, so that the audience sees the entire room or a group of characters), but he also understood the importance of the well-timed close up. In fact, the infrequency of close ups made them even more powerful when they came. With _Cafe Lumiere_, we spend so much time admiring the compositions and cinematography that we don't focus on the characters. I'm not sure if there's even one close shot of someone's face, and most conversations are filmed as if we were on the other side of the room. So it's hard to get a real sense of what Yoko or her parents or Hajime are feeling. This is not unusual with Hou, but he seems to have exaggerated the technique as a way of imitating Ozu, and it drains some of the story's emotion.

Nonetheless, just because Hou can't scale Mount Ozu doesn't mean Cafe Lumiere is a failure. There's much to enjoy, especially for Ozu and Hou's many admirers. And the chance to see cinematographer Lee Ping-Bing's glorious images on the big screen should not be missed.   four, out of five

J. Robert Parks