Reviews of Late Spring
Displaying all 3 reviews
dope fiend willy
19Feb09
spoilers ahead:
1949) Late Spring
Wow. This film really seems to be a turning point for Ozu. The setting of the film feels much more modern than any of his previous films, and Ozu is handling a much larger cast than he has ever had before, and I believe is his longest film up to this point. It is an epic, make no mistakes about it.
There are a lot of ironies in the film. Ironies like the Coca-cola sign along the road, and the english words on the signs. Noriko herself is a full of irony. While she is perhaps the most modern looking and behaving-the way she acts, that she says that she doesn’t believe in arranged marriages-but she is also much more traditional in her thoughts than her father and the other characters around her. In a way, I think that Noriko is meant to represent Japan, in that Japan was at a turning point and she is caught up in it, but she is still an adolescent, and must grow before she can become truly modern; and as the film goes along she comes to accept that re-marrying is not a sin, and she also ends up marrying herself, finally becoming full-grown.
Ryo Chisu, plays her father, and while he is playing an older character than he has ever played before, he is indeed one of the most modern characters in the entire film. You can tell this immedtiately simply by the way that Noriko acts and the way that he has raised her to be-for as much as she may try to think in the traditional manner, he has spoiled her and she acts much more like a westerner than a traditional Japanese girl. Ryo is the modern man, and you can tell in the scene in which he serves Noriko and her friend Aya-not common for a man to do at this time.
In the end her father actually tricks her into marrying, because he knows that the only way that she will leave him and marry, is if she thinks that another woman will take her place. He tells Aya that its the biggest lie he’s ever told, but he’s so incredibly happy that he did it, yet there is no mistaking how empty he now feels after his sacrifice. This is a slice of life, a masterpiece of the cinema.
This is certainly Ozu’s most complex film up to this point, as well as his best and there is so much to be said about it. I look forward to viewing this film many times in the future.
- Currently 5.0/5 Stars.
Iliveinfear
10Dec08
Late Spring and Tokyo Story are generally considered Ozu’s masterpieces and are among the greatest films ever made. In Late Spring we have two people, a father and his daughter, perfectly content with the way they live. It is when outside forces intervene, in this case an aunt, that the father feels he must push his daughter towards marriage, even if it means telling a lie to do so. By the end of the film we come to two realizations-that change is an inevitability of life, and that sometimes our decisons are based on outside forces and not what we truly want. Yes, a daughter marrying and moving away from home is a natural and sometimes necessary part of life. However, Noriko(played by the exquisite Setsuko Hara) does not want to move out. She is truly happy taking care of her father and feels no urge to marry. As the film progresses we sense the sadness and anger behind her smiles. Eventually she gives in because that is what her father supposedly wants. The father (played by the great Chishu Ryu) also is perfectly happy living with his daughter, but gives in because that is what he feels is best for his daughter. We see two people sacrificing their own happiness in order to make an arrangement that they think is best for the other, even though they were both perfectly content with the way things were. The only ones who are truly happy with the new arrangement are those outside forces who pushed for it in the first place. This all culminates into one of the most simple, yet powerful endings in film history. Late Spring is also one of Ozu’s most personal films, as he never married and lived with his mother her whole life. While making compromises for those you love are a necessary part of life, making decisions based on what you feel others want you to do will only end in unhappiness. This is a sad and common part of life, one that Ozu illustrates perfectly. It is not told melodramatically like most films would, but in a serene and naturalistic way that makes the film all the more powerful and profound by it’s end.
- Currently 5.0/5 Stars.
Rodney Welch
26Nov08
I hesitated watching this Ozu masterpiece because it was, well, an Ozu film: long, and meditative and slow and yes, probably great, probably good for you, like oatmeal. It’s sometimes hard to get into the proper mood for his films, the way it is with a lot of great filmmakers.
Then, when it’s over, I’m reminded how a great film can gets its hooks in you. I find myself captivated by something so perfect, so elegant, so simple, so totally lacking in anything but a camera recording pure human emotion: in this case, a father explaining to a daughter why she must leave him and get married. It doesn’t sound like much, maybe, but in Ozu’s hands, it breaks the heart.
Late Spring is part of Ozu’s “Noriko trilogy,” along with Early Summer and Tokyo Story. All star Setsuko Hara, playing three different characters named Noriko; different, that is, in that she’s a daughter in a different family. Her character, though, is the same: a young woman who is pressed by her family to accept a marriage proposal.
In the criticism I’ve read of Ozu, the point is often made that his titles and plots are all quite similar. (There’s also Early Spring, Late Summer, and Autumn Afternoon, among many others.)
Late Spring is one of those films where, 30 minutes or so in, you may still find yourself wondering what it’s about. It’s the type of film that all kind of culminates gradually in an overpowering scene that brings everything together.
Here, Noriko lives with her father, and doesn’t want to leave him. He wants her to get married because she’s 27, already past her prime in 1948 (when the film was released) but she doesn’t want to leave her father’s side. They’ve built a life together where she looks after him, and as far as she’s concerned it ought to stay that way. Dismiss all thoughts of incest — that’s not Ozu’s game. Noriko simply likes life as it is. She’s comfortable living with her father and doesn’t want change.
One of the subtle themes of the film — which is worth bearing in mind as you watch it — is that it’s partly about life under American occupation, and it involves people who have already been through upheaval enough for a lifetime. We’re told, for example, that Noriko had a rough go of it during the war, and although she’s a very buoyant young woman she seems to be still suffering from the effects of the war. (Possibly radiation poisoning.)
Here is where it gets touching. As her father sees it, she simply must get married, and he and Noriko’s aunt set out to find a suitor. It doesn’t matter that Noriko likes staying with her father or that he likes staying with her — the two of them must move on. (The father wants to get remarried as well.)
It’s what life is about, as the father sees it: young women are supposed to get married and have children, not look after aging fathers. It doesn’t matter that she doesn’t like it, and it doesn’t greatly matter that her arranged marriage may not be 100 percent happy at first; maybe in a few years, it will be. But it must occur.
Ozu lets situations develop with great patience, and doesn’t go out of his way to exacerbate scenes or puff them up, or give you a clear side to root for, as you expect in a typical romance about marriage. You can’t look at it and say Noriko’s right and her father is wrong. The father is doing what he believes is right: pushing his young one from the nest.
Critic Michael Atkinson addresses this well:
Far from a Manichaean take on the oppressive power of lingering social norms, Late Spring is a hushed battlefield where no one is right or wrong. We watch the infliction roll out inexorably, wishing there were a cheesy, American-style resolution somewhere on the horizon in which all of the well-meaning characters could be happy. But that’s not Ozu. Ozu is the natural energy of Noriko’s generous grin, dispensed selflessly in all social situations, until she realizes where her life is helplessly headed—and the blood-cooling shock of seeing that resilient smile finally drop.I was relieved to hear on the excellent commentary on the Criterion disc — relieved because there were times I thought I had missed something — that Ozu plants a lot of subtle mysteries in the film, that there are suggestive absences. We don’t know what happened to Noriko’s mother, for example, and it may be that she had a brother lost in the war — which may help explain the father’s tenderness toward his daughter. There are things in it, in other words, that are hinted at, left unsaid, much in the way people who understand each other don’t say things in real life.
The Criterion expert said that almost all Ozu’s films are about facing and overcoming disappointment, which seems to me to about cover it.
- Currently 5.0/5 Stars.