Moderated
But it’s not entirely the father’s selfish choice to ‘keep’ his daughter, is it? There are plenty of films in which selfish parents ‘hang on’ to their children and prevent them from being happy, but in this case Noriko really does seem to be quite happy and content to live with her father.
However, society deems this ‘a little strange’ and so her father pushes her away in order for her to accept an arranged marriage because it’s ‘the right thing’ to do. In the end he feels sad. He’s left by himself (which is a lonely way to be – without even considering selfishness) and quite possibly she won’t be happy – it’s not like she got the boy she actually seemd to like with the bike.
Interesting point, Alex.
However, I felt this was a film more about love, and how different it is outside a family sector. Speaking of family, consider the situation in Late Spring. Chisu’s character was widowed, and the daughter grew up with an emotionally devoid of maternal influence. She was raised by a very very sad man who did his best to make her as well rounded as possible. Chisu’s depressed, thinks it’s his fault for this strong attacthment, but what should he have done, loved her less? Shown her less affection?. The fact that Chisu was so close to his daughter was because he was trying to make up for the loss of his mother, and the love that she would have provided. His job as a father was now doubled, having to fufill her needs on both sides of the spectrum. This was done correctly, and as a result, created a very strong bond between the two.
It’s illogical to place limitations and expectations on love within a family. Especially here when in it works so well. The daughter is is emotionally fulfilled. Also, I think the daughter understood, from a very early age, that her father compromised his love life so that he can focus on raising his daughter.
I haven’t had to experience loss like this (thankfully and gratefully).
It may be helpful to explore the cultural differences of family in the east, as I imagine it’s probably a hell of a lot different than ours.
What do you think?
“Is he selfish or is he worried about her?”
Everyone has taken the time to point that out to me, so i think i messed up somewhere.
It’s a little of both, I’d say. There’s no malicious intent in this movie. It’s definitely important to note that all actions taken by the characters in this film are done out of love (arranged marriage aside), but that doesn’t mean these actions were right. And furthermore, I think it’s unfair to do what this movie does – villainize society for looking out for what I’d personally say is an unhealthy and sad relationship between father and daughter; simultaneously heartwarming, yes,… but in the long run, probably not wise or right. And Ozu kind of implies with the sad tone of his ending that he thinks otherwise. They should have been let be.
“Noriko really does seem to be quite happy and content to live with her father.”
Indeed, though I question the healthiness of this contentment because a) I just find such an outlook easily questionable, i guess. and b) the way she gets testy when people suggest marriage to her… it doesn’t seem like a sane response (sane isn’t the right word…. too strong… but hopefully you get what i mean).
“It’s illogical to place limitations and expectations on love within a family.”
Alex, I’d disagree. Maybe it’s a sign of the times, but I can’t help but consider weighing in the psychological factors here.
“What should he have done, loved her less? Shown her less affection?”
He should have at least encouraged her to leave the nest several years sooner? Not acted like it was okay to stick around the house till she was 27 without dating. It’s called tough love – sometimes it’s needed.
Also, I didn’t see any implications that he compromised his options with remarriage so that he could raise her. Is that just an assumption? Besides, I think he raised her long enough…
Yes, only an assumption, but i think it’s implied if you consider he is a single widow.
“– villainize society for looking out for what I’d personally say is an unhealthy and sad relationship between father and daughter;”
I think this may be the problem. Who’s to say society is looking out for anyone? Who’s to say that marriage works for everyone? We know now that it clearly doesn’t. Who’s to say it makes someone automatically healthy?
Why change if your emotional needs are being fulfilled?
“Not acted like it was okay to stick around the house till she was 27 without dating. It’s called tough love – sometimes it’s needed.”
I think the only people who can make decisions about what is right and wrong for a family are the people in that family. Think about the Parent Teacher Association, and other little factions where a collective tries to provide tips to make children healthy, even though there’s no way their idea’s apply to every child.
This is that same situation.
Our values are different, we view parenting from the perspective of the 23 year old bachelor. All that you can hope for is that your kids come out ok. Know right from wrong, and know how to love. There’s no way to teach a kid who to love and where to put it.
Chisu’s character, as i said, had to cover the roles of both mother and father. I think people are confusing selfishness with paternal/maternal instincts.
That is a good point. Marriage is certainly not always healthy or for everyone. I feel like the girl in this movie had a chance though… or at least would have had a chance if it hadn’t been for the actions of the father.
And yeah, it’s not always right to force our ideals on other families, but I think the relationship in this film is just not healthy. I mean, you gotta draw the line somewhere don’t you? Did you see what I was saying about how this girl is missing out on life? The only reason she is content and happy is because her father has essentially over cared for her to the point that she’s developed some kind of syndrome that I’m sure has a name. And I don’t think that’s right.
I wanna say that it takes a very amazing heart to make a film that sympathizes such a situation to the degree that this film does, but then I think about Ozu’s life and realize he empathizes with this situation. He never married and lived with his mother till the day she died. And then he died two years after. Now I’m talking from an uninformed point of view here, but it sounds a little like he had some neurosis himself…
Also, just a note: I’m paranoid that I might be coming across more cold than intended (which is to say, not at all) in my responses. Again, not trying to trash talk Ozu or his films at all. And thank you to everyone that has posted responses so far!
But she’s not missing out on life. She enjoyed bike rides in the country past glittering Coca Cola signs, went out drinking with her divorced friends, etc. Her father never made any unreasonable demands on her.
But now she’s a wife to some guy she doesn’t know. Yes, it might work out OK. But there’s no way she’s going to have more freedom in her life in 1950s Japan by getting married. She’s going to be stuck at home looking after her husband’s parents when she’d rather be looking after her own.
But again, the film doesn’t necessarily come out and say what a bad thing this is. And Noriko seems like she’ll be happy anyhow.
“Did you see what I was saying about how this girl is missing out on life? "
I do, and i agree, but at the same time, I don’t like the theory that this is because of Chisu. at 27, she is more than capable of thinking for herself. Any decision she makes is her responsibility. Maybe her being reclusive comes from another place? Maybe her experience with death, or some other sort of trauma. My issue with your point, although well said, is that you are making their relationship trauma.
“but it sounds a little like he had some neurosis himself…”
Correct, he is a filmmaker and artist, obsessed with detail and neatness. He did not marry and lived with his mother. Is this his mother’s fault? Who knows. I’d like to think not, and that his decision to stay with his mom and not marry is genetic. Being born a certain way. It has been suggested through forums that he may have been homosexual? (PURELY SPECULATION AND IN NO WAY INTENDED TO STEER THIS TOPIC) But if you consider this possibility (and apply it to the daughter) then the decision to stay with a loving parent seems appropriate, given the insurmountable oppression.
yeah, alex, i did feel like their was a trauma-side to their relationship… and it was weirding me out that no one else really felt that way, but….
“She enjoyed bike rides in the country past glittering Coca Cola signs, went out drinking with her divorced friends, etc.”
rofl… Well put! And a very good point, sir. Actually, i feel like you just blew up my brain – in a good way. hmm… Seriously, yeah, that truly wards off any creepy vibes that I got from the film before. I think the only insecurity I have left now is this minor concern that she’ll never grow to her full potential; just cuz i think a person needs to leave the nest to fully grow, but that’s a flimsy argument at best, I’m thinkin’, and one for another place and another day.
Thanks, everyone! I feel like I can give this film a favorable rating now. Good talk! Keep the discussion going if you like. I can’t guarantee that I’ll personally check the thread frequently, but I will check again here and there just to see if anyone else has any interesting points or observations to make. Have a good night, folks!
And remember, this is Japan, there’s nothing strange at all about living with your parents (even now). If she were a man he’d still be living with his father even after getting married.
The setup is not ‘Noriko lives with her father as opposed to living her own life’ it’s ‘Noriko lives with her father as opposed to getting married’. The social abnormaility is that she’s 27 and not married yet.
Of course, she has far more freedom in this emerging land of Coca Cola than would have been possible in her father’s time. 30 years ago she wouldn’t have been out drinking in pubs and enjoying bike rides.
And in a way it’s this clash of new vs old culture which is so tragic. Her increased freedom in the modern age means she has more to lose when she succumbs to the inevitable traditional thinking of the family.
Moderated
Sanjuro and Alexander get it.
haven’t seen this film but from what i have read it sounds like:
‘the ballad of jack and rose’ (this film was disturbing) and ‘grey gardens’ (haven’t seen this one either)
because of the family dynamics.
Elston always manages to get moderated.
It could be a cultural thing and the times.
Perhaps this opening dialogue from Hal Hartley’s 1997 Henry Fool seems less strange.
Fay Grim, roughly the same age as Noriko (Setsuko Hara) and living with her mother (also a widower), speaking to her mother Mary and brother Simon:
00:01:02 —> 00:02:53,263
Fay Grim -You want some? I’m gonna kill you!
Mother Mary – Where the hell have you been?
Fay Grim -Mom, come on and eat!
Mother Mary -I’m not hungry.
Fay Grim -Then why did I cook?
Mother Mary -I don’t know why you cooked. I don’t know why you bother.
Fay Grim – Eat, Simon.
Fay Grim – God! I want to get fucked.
“He should have at least encouraged her to leave the nest several years sooner?”
World War II prevented that. She has to stay with her father because she was sick for years after the war (because of the enormous hardship the war brought) and no good, decent man in Japan would marry a sick woman.
Ozu is pointing to a situation that most Japanese find themselves in after World War II… their family is all they have left. Even if they assembled their lives and are able to live in a comfortable middle class background they now realize the fragility of that situation. It can be implied that Noriko lost her mother at a very young age, but it seems even more likely that she lost her mother during the war (which would be a large reason as to why she had so much extra work heaped upon her as to make her sick), and that the knowledge of imminent death created the bond between father and daughter, and that the complete uncertainty of the years of U.S. occupation after the war strengthened that bond even further.
For over a decade they literally had nothing but each other… now is the time they have to break with each other. Right or wrong, imposed or of free will, that brings tremendous sadness. Ozu is not denigrating society, nor is he denigrating this relationship. He’s pointing to the sadness that leaving the people you love ultimately brings. Does society play a role? Yes, but Noriko would have been sad whether she married at 27, 21, 16, or any other age. It’s just a fact of life, and that is what lives on for much longer than any social commentary.
Its also the widow/widower – daughter/son dynamic. Sometimes when a parent dies a remaining child can try and step up and be more dominant to try and protect the parent who is vulnerable and sad. Because its a very helpless situation so the child wants to do something. Its like the reverse of Ozu’s father in this story the father is compensating for the loss of the mother by double dosing on love. I think this also happens in situations with divorce and single parents.
Lets also keep in mind rarely during this time was marriage about love. It was often arrange and more of a service to society and your family than a pleasure (it COULD become a pleasure, but often that pleasure derived from doing a service to your family and society)
@jp schmidt:
good point. i also think that the devastation of the war combined with the personal tragedy created an absurdity that perhaps contributed to this delay to get married (of course her being sick did play a major factor as mentioned earlier). conventions seem to make less sense when tragedy strikes.
Also I think its a bit misleading to equate this type of relationship dynamic as a form of latent incest as Elston was posting. I think that latency is evident in films like ‘The Ballad of Jack and Rose’ but I don’t think that type of Freudian psychobabble can be cookie-cutter applied to every situation. Ozu’s ‘Late Spring’ is still ultimately hypothetical to me as I haven’t seen it and only have read these postings about it. So how credible my statements are is based off a soft science of personal experience and reading. Dynamics can also form into a strong and fearful attachment out of tragedy. Of course this could evolve into some codependent relationship where the sufferer in the relationship avoids the reality of grief and the necessary steps in taking responsibility for one’s own life despite suffering as a result of the cushioning that is provided anxiously by the other person. This type of shielding aims at diminishing negative experiences but also keeps out a lot of the good because of the isolationism.
What Lord Quas said. I don’t think anyone, including “society,” is depicted as a villain here. It’s just the way things are.
When I first watched this film, it was on the last Sunday before Christmas and I was supposed to be out Christmas shopping. Instead I decided to watch this Ozu movie. Every so often, as I watched this tale of a daughter’s filial devotion, I had to pause the movie and answer the phone. It was my daughter, out Christmas shopping, and consulting me on what WE should get for various family members. She was doing my shopping for me! What a gal.
@Lord Quas
Good point! I totally forgot about that bit of dialogue about her being sick after the war!
@Lord Quas
Good point! I totally forgot about that bit of dialogue about her being sick after the war!
Moderated
Elston has been muzzled.
In accordance with new Mubi moderating policies, I am now leaving a description as to why he was muzzled.
Elston was making making an incongruous & inappropriate reference & likening it to an Ozu character.
Basically, trolling under the guise of very sardonic film discussion.
His posts were flagged & I was messaged by other users, asking for moderation.
One person even said it was “the most disgusting thing he’d ever read on the site”; & I agree wholeheartedly.
I messaged Elston telling him to never make a reference to that person, or anything like it, because it was upsetting people. Since I’ve had to have these little fireside chats with Elston before, I assured him this was his Last warning.
A user alerted me this morning that Elston then posted this private message on this thread.
By posting this, he is directly referencing the offensive content that he was told never to bring up again, thus breaking the one & only bylaw I gave him for his last warning: “don’t post that name on this site or anything like it”.
It is unfortunate, because oftentimes he did have interesting & pertinent things to add to conversations about cinema. Unfortunately, he seemed to be more interested in irking our fellow users to a point where they are flagging his posts & private messaging myself & other moderators.
We at MUBI never, ever want to muzzle anyone.
But after repeat offenses, innumerable flags, & x-amount of written complaints, it’s just something that has to happen, as rarely as possible.
Thank you for your patience & understanding.
Keep MUBI Troll-Free.
Hunh… it’s nice having moderators that actually explain themselves on a site. Good form!
“He never married and lived with his mother till the day she died. And then he died two years after. Now I’m talking from an uninformed point of view here, but it sounds a little like he had some neurosis himself…”
In Japan at the time of Ozu’s life gay men were not only expected to hide DEEP in the closet, but get married and have children. If they chose to go to gay bathhouses and do what they wanted to do after work (or whenever) that was their business, but they still HAD to get married and live as “normal” a life as possible. To live with your mother until you’re almost sixty in Japan in Ozu’s time was tantamount to being Harvey Milk in the late seventies U.S. (okay… well that’s a little overstated, but you get the idea).
There’s an interesting interview in the criterion release of the The Human Condition trilogy DVD (I believe it was this DVD… I could be wrong, but I’m relatively certain). Masahiro Shinoda is interviewing Masaki Kobayashi and the conversation turns to their dual admiration of Ozu… and marriage… and then Shinoda jokes, “…and Ozu never married!” And there is this immediate implied awkwardness in their reactions… they both stop laughing, give a very odd smile, and then look around and stay silent for a moment or two. Their combined reaction takes less than a second, but it implies worlds… It’s obvious what the joke is really saying. Both of them know it, their audience (the original interview was made for Japanese TV, I believe) knows it, anyone relatively familiar with Japanese society knows it. Their silence screams, “Ozu was gay!!!”
But, then again, Japanese society thrives on gossip, and the continued discussion of Ozu’s personal life is definitely full of that (with almost no evidence for Ozu being gay, straight, or asexual). It seems much less likely, though, that Ozu (a man that by all reports was as socially healthy as a man could possibly be (other than the singular aspect that is often the focus of his work)) was full of neurosis than it was he just couldn’t reconcile his personal sexual preference with the conservative society he resided in. This informs his films; mostly in the form of a modernity vs. tradition mold. Ozu’s characters are continuously unable to reconcile their modern world with the ofttimes conservative expectation society imposes upon them.
It’s not about healthy/unhealthy. There’s nothing much to suggest that the two leads in Late Spring are anything but incredibly loving family members. It has more to do with the difficulty of reconciling personal individuality and self-sacrifice. If there is a single strain of commentary that survived even in Ozu’s final films it’s that Japanese beliefs on self-sacrifice (ideas that propelled the nation into Manchuria and World War II) are outdated, and relatively useless, but the Japanese have no intention or ability to give these ideas up. They will continue to live in mediocrity because it’s what they know and it’s what they’ve been told they need to do.
I’m reminded of numerous scenes in Ozu’s late films in which a main character is sitting in a bar in Ginza and Eijiro Tono (always the world-wearied, haggard faced old man) sits down and begins saying he was just let go from his job… and his pension won’t be enough to get him through retirement (or allow him to do what he wants to in retirement). He’s always near the verge of tears (maybe because he’s usually on the verge of passing out) and crying, “30 years of work and they just let me go, just like that! Life is full of unhappiness!”
What person in their right mind would listen to that and go back to the same work this man just got fired from the next day? They always do in an Ozu film. And their fate will be pretty much the same. It is the condition in Japan; they believe by sacrificing their happiness they will serve some greater, unknown purpose. That is the only sickness continuously present in Ozu’s work; because it’s a sickness that envelops almost all industrial nations.
incredibly well said and informed Lord Q.
didn’t ozu write in his diaries though about women he had crushes on? i thought i remember reading that.
Alexander Robino
Now, I know there’s a lot of love for this film. That said, please understand that I’m not trash talking Ozu or his film. In fact, I’m frustrated with myself for being the only one to find the film a little off-putting. So, let’s talk.
Here’s what I’m talking about (spoilers alert): The whole time I was watching this film, I was wondering, why is Ozu giving these scenes a sad undertone? Then, when it was over, I realized we were supposed to pity the father and daughter; that society was kind of the villain for making them feel like they needed to separate; that they should have been allowed to stay together and be content. Am I the only one here that finds this a little…erm… strange?
“To each their own,” was what a friend said to me when I pointed this out to him. I think Freud might have been intrigued by this. Hitchcock certainly was.
To continue, the father himself says that she’s only happy because he’s kept her too long and essentially scarred her into thinking that he needs her. And indeed, he does need someone around to help him function day to day, but to me, that’s beside the point.
Doesn’t it seem selfish and sick to keep anyone, let alone your own daughter, from experiencing life for themselves on your behalf? Once again, he says something along these lines himself. And I guess, my qualm is that we’re supposed to feel like he’s saying this as a white lie to her so that she’ll live a happy life that society sees fit.
Now, I’m all about questioning societal standards (cuz lord knows, it often needs questioning), but I kind of agree with what’s supposed to be the white lie in this case… heh.
But that said, none of my feelings are set in stone. There’s always a good chance I’m not considering something. So, I’m ready for some healthy (and civil) discussion.