EARLY SUMMER
(Review essay by BRUCE EDER)
Directed by master filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu, Early Summer is an intense
but often humorous
observation of the stresses that affect the family as a unit. Ozu's lens zooms
in on the close-knit
Mamiya family as they try to marry off their 28-year-old daughter. A beautiful
example of the
domestic dramas of postwar Japan.
Early Summer, directed by Yasujiro Ozu (1903-1963), is one of the filmmaker's
most absorbing and
poignant dramas. The movie resonates with the rhythms and contradictions of
modern Japanese
life, the conflict between giri (duty) and ninjo (human feeling), and the meaning
of tradition in
postwar Japan.
The film is a complex personal story, involving three generations of the Mamiya
family, which
consists of the grandparents, Shukichi Mamiya (Ichiro Sugai) and his wife Shige
(Chieko
Higashiyama); their son Koichi (Chishu Ryu), a doctor who is married, with two
sons; and their
unmarried daughter Noriko (Setsuko Hara), a secretary. The family has settled
into a contented life
after the loss of another son, Shoji, during World War II, but now faces a new
problem - Noriko is
28 years old and must soon marry. Her parents, brother, employer, friends, and
neighbors all seek
to help her choose potential husbands, none of whom are acceptable. Noriko makes
her choice
independently of all of them, selecting Yabe, Koichi's assistant, but the family
objects because he
is a widower with a daughter from his previous marriage. Noriko's marriage also
means that she
must move to Akita, where Yabe assigned to a hospital. The loss of her contribution
to the
household income forces the breakup of the Mamiya family, as her parents go
to live with
Shukichi's brotherin the distant city of Yamato.
The crumbling of the traditions that have guided Japanese life was a favorite
subject of Ozu's. The
war and its aftermath, as a disruptive influence on e family, quietly permeates
the entire film and
the action. Noriko and her independent nature represent the kind of "impudent"
woman that her
brother Koichi constantly complains about, having found them too common since
the war; the loss
of Shoji is a source of grief that the grandparents have scarcely recovered
from; and Noriko's choice
of Yabe, Shoji's best friend, is, in some respects, her way of honoring his
memory. It is also an
unacceptable choice under a different set of social rules, however, which she
must break - and in
breaking those rules and traditions, she shatters the unity of the family.
Early Summer is a beguilingly lyrical, exquisitely nuanced movie. Its
substance lies in the textures
of Japanese life captured in Ozu's cinematic prism. His use of cinematic devices
is very quiet and
subtle - his camera is, as usual, relatively sedate, with much of the action
seen from the point of
view of the tatami shot (in which the camera is three feet off the ground, perfect
for catching the
facial expressions of kneeling characters); but his use of audio cues to bridge
and link scenes -
such as the sound of the kabuki performance that moves from the theater to the
radio between two
shots, and the sliding door that's transformed into a roar of train wheels -
echos the best
Hollywood thrillers.
Scholar David Bordwell has compared it to one of Hollywood's most renowned wartime
family
stories, Vincente Minnelli's Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), although Ozu's
work lacks the distractions
of Technicolor, trolley songs, and oppressively cute children. One can also
find antecedents in the
best dramatic work of John Ford (The Grapes of Wrath, The Sun Shines
Bright) and Leo McCarey
(Make Way for Tomorrow). It is one of Ozu's most moving and involving
films, and one of his most
enduring classics. - BRUCE EDER
Bruce Eder is a film historian and a frequent contributor to Criterion Collection
audio commentary
tracks.
CAST
SETSUKO HARA Noriko
CHISHU RYU Koichi
CHIKAGE AWASHIMA Aya Tamura
KUNIKO MIYAKE Fumiko
ICHIRO SUGAI Shukichi
CHIEKO HIGASHIYAMA Shige
SHUJI SANO Sotaro Satake
ZEN MURASE Minoru
RYUKAN NIMOTO Kenkichi Yabe
ISAO SHIROSAWA Isamu
HARUKO SUGIMURA Tami Yabe
With
KAN NIHON-YANAGI, KUMIKO IGAWA
TOYOKO TAKAHASHI, SEIJI MIYAGUCHI CREDITS
Directed by YASUJIRO OZU
Produced by TAKESHI YAMAMOTO
Screenplay by KOGO NODA, YASUJIRO OZU
Photography by TAKEHARU ATSUTA
Edited by YOSHIYASU HAMAMURA
Music by SENJI ITO
Bakushu (Early Summer): A Second Review
An independent-minded 28-year old woman living in cosmopolitan, post-war Tokyo
may seem
immune from the societal pressures of marriage, but in Noriko's (Setsuko Hara)
environment,
it is a perennially surfacing, unavoidable topic. Her father, Tamura (Chikage
Awashima), and
mother, Shige (Chieko Higashiyama), are unable to retire to her uncle's house
in the
provincial town of Yamato until their duty to marry off Noriko to a worthy suitor
has been
fulfilled. Her visits with school friends invariably break down into playful
arguments between
the married and unmarried women. Even her office director offers to introduce
her to a
40-year old business acquaintance, providing her photographs of the obscured
prospective
suitor to take home to show her family. Upon learning of Noriko's suitor, her
brother Koichi
(Chishu Ryu) takes it upon himself to investigate the businessman's suitability
(as the
businessman similarly dispatches a detective to inquire about Noriko), and encourages
their
marriage, despite the age difference. Meanwhile, Koichi's recently widowed friend
and
colleague, Kenkichi Yabe (Ryudan Nimoto) has been transferred to an agricultural
province.
During Noriko's farewell visit to the Yabe family, Kenkichi's mother (Haruko
Sugimura)
confesses her hope for her son to marry Noriko, an offer that she impulsively
accepts.
However, her family is less receptive to the idea, believing that Kenkichi's
modest income
and young child would lead their beloved Noriko to a life of hardship.
Yasujiro Ozu's signature low angle camera strikes a delicate, harmonious balance
in Early
Summer, and echoes the dichotomy of contemporary Japan: tradition versus
modernization, selfishness versus altruism, respect for elders versus independence.
Compassionate and characteristically reserved, Ozu chronicles the disintegration
of the traditional extended family as
an accepted process of life, and the film evolves with a sense of appropriate
inevitability. The contrast between the
elders, usually contemplative and at leisure, and the younger generations -
the overworked Koichi and the impatient
children (with literal one track minds) - reflect the various stages of life.
Episodically, the opening images of the beach
and caged birds are reflected throughout the film, providing a sense of continuity
to the ritual of existence. In the
end, it is the words of the usually reticent Tamura that seems to provide the
key for a successful life: "We shouldn't
want too much." It is a thought that is similarly shared by master Ozu
in the filming of Early Spring - a spare,
beautifully realized story of profound, yet fundamentally human emotions.