BFI Top 50: Late Spring, Released in 1949, Directed by Yasujiro Ozu

What I know going in

Not much, except the basic premise of the film, a father wants his daughter to marry, but she insists she is happy regardless. This will be my first Ozu, a major director I am very unfamiliar with. I know that he tends toward a static, contemplative style though.

 

Immediate reaction

Note: this first post will be a documentation of my immediate thoughts on the film. Overall, my initial response can best be summed up as pleasant indifference. Just from glancing at the film’s mammoth Wikipedia page, which includes an entire paragraph for the “vase scene”, I can tell there was a lot about the film that I completely missed. I looked forward to increasing my understanding of the film and Ozu in general, but first…

 

Two things immediately stand out about Late Spring, even to an Ozu novice. The first is the technique. The film is built almost entirely out of static, low-to-mid angle shots of people talking to each other, eating, doing chores, or just walking around the house. The only time a camera tracks to follow something are a handful of scenes set outside. The standard shot-reverse-shot technique is used during most of the dialogue. However, instead of a normal positioning where the characters occupy one side of the screen and speak to opposite, Ozu’s characters occupy almost the dead center of the frame and get very close to directly addressing the camera (think Lecter and Starling’s first meeting in Silence of the Lambs, but with less flair). This pared-down style has the effect of removing any distracting stylistic tics and keeps the focus squarely on the characters and their immediate surroundings.

 

The second is the story, which is almost beautiful in its simplicity. The beginning few scenes quickly establish the happy home life of ProfessorShukichi Somiya (ChishuRyu) and his doting daughter Noriko (Setsuko Hara). Shukichi lives a pleasant life as a professor near retirement and fills his days training a young assistant, writing and attending meetings. Noriko gladly busies herself taking general care for her father (washing clothes, prepping meals). Eventually, this peace is disturbed when another character suggests that Noriko, now 27, should be looking to get married soon. The film then hits then gets into a bit of repetition where various characters insist that Noriko get married and she tries to dodge their questions by claiming her father is too dependent on her. Eventually, Noriko’s father joins in, and she, more out of being worn down than anything else, finally agrees. In a less assured director’s hands that premise would an excuse for histrionics or melodrama, and while there are a few outburst moments in the film, overall, things are kept to a more quiet style. The film just lets you sit back and observe the characters as they go through tiny problems, shift about their house, and try to wrestle with the questions the film raises about familial duty. That probably sounds really close to the style most American Indies work in these days, but Late Spring, due to the more rigid style, has a more meditative feel.

 

Now, to get to my issues with the film, this mainly boils down to ambivalence about the acting. I found the acting from almost all the major players to be very stilted. That’s a general complaint people have when they first start watching older films, and Japanese films in particular seem to rub people the wrong way. I don’t have that problem, and I actually find the zealous nature of the acting in say a Kurosawa film bracing. I think my major problem was with the main actress. For a good part of the film, her face was stuck in this big, creepy smile that at first glance appears to have more to do with rictus than any emotion. I suppose the technique is effective in establishing a huge contrast between Noriko’s state at the beginning and the end, but it just sort of annoyed me. The father was also very hard to read, and I’m not sure if his emotional obliviousness was intentional or due to inexpressive acting (he seems to wear the same, little half-smile throughout all of the film). Finally, I sometimes felt the music was at odds with the nature of the story. The film was trying very hard to sell this small, low-stakes story, but the music would sometimes shift into this 50’s sitcom-esque mode.

 

Further thoughts

After reading through some other reviews, I have a better grasp on the acting style in Late Spring. I do believe that Hara’s stiffness is intentional, especially when she is responding to the insults or pronouncements of others. Her smile is meant to be a fake, like a shield put up to help protect her against the creeping realization that her life is about to drastically change. However, I still think Hara as the father is a bit harder to read, although I feel more positive on his performance overall than I did initially. He reads as a bit oblivious during the early scenes because, like Noriko, he hasn’t put any thought into the odd (according to outsiders) situation he and his daughter have found themselves in. As it’s revealed throughout the film, he doesn’t care if his daughter gets married or not, he simply wants her to be happy, and mistakenly comes to believe that marriage is the path to such happiness. His non-response to his daughter’s worries are fitting, because he is trying to keep up the ruse that he is going to remarry and trying to hide his true feelings.

 

Thinking back on it, the film is actually a little terrifying in the inevitably of Shukichi and Noriko’s dissolution. It’s like watching a train slowly move towards a clearly visible collision, being the only one to know about it, and being unable to tell anyone else about it except through the smallest changes in expression and tone. Roger Ebert sums up this feeling best when he states: “Late Spring tells a story that becomes sadder the more you think about it.”

 

 

 

Why is the film on this list?

Again, I’ll let Roger Ebert take it away here with his perfect summation of the film’s story and themes: “Late Spring is a film about two people who desperately do not believe this, and about how they are undone by their tact, their concern for each other, and their need to make others comfortable by seeming to agree with them.”