Late Spring (1949)

Late Spring is a film that I found in someways more rewarding than Tokyo Story, another acclaimed classic from Yasujiro Ozu. Both films share a few of his trademarks. They are home dramas with basic, everyday plots, termed Shomin-geki. Also exhibited are a stationary camera and low camera angles that Ozu often used to focus on his characters while sitting. In this way he invented the quintessentially Japanese viewpoint known as the "tatami shot." We see it most certainly in Late Spring as the daughter Norkio interacts with her widowed father or when they have friends over in their home. It may look somewhat similar to Tokyo Story, but it does differ in subject matter.

Late Spring is a film about fathers and daughters. Marriage and divorce. All the things that make up life that remain the same whether you're in modern American or post-war Japan. Noriko is a pretty young woman who is devoted to her aging father through thick and thin. He likes having her around and she likes being there for him.

It's the culture, namely aunts and friends who tell Norkio that she must get married. She's 27 years old and she needs to find a husband before its too late. Her father won't be around forever. She'll need to make a new life for herself. But Noriko is content with not listening to the voices trying to sway her. Only when her father talks to her about marriage does she finally begin to listen. He makes conversation about getting remarried and encourages her to think about an arranged marriage that her aunt has waiting for her.

We never meet this man who supposedly looks like Gary Cooper, but Noriko seems to genuinely like him. And yet there still is something that isn't quite right. In Japan there is great importance in "reading the air," and it seems like some of the characters in Ozu's film fail at this or they see only what they want to see.

In the end Noriko gets married and it should be no surprise, because it was what was ultimately expected of her. Her father on the other hand acknowledges to a friend that he had no intention on getting remarried, it was only to prompt Noriko. Professor Somiya took on a great sacrifice in the eyes of society and goes home alone.

This is a bitter sweet tale that is surprisingly funny on many occasions, but it is also topped off with human tragedy. Not death or dying but something potentially worse in loneliness and discontentment. It is only a thought, but it seems like Noriko and her father would have both been happy with the status quo. However, their sensibilities and society said otherwise so they acted as they were expected to. From this simple drama comes one of the most powerful films on father-daughter relationships that I have ever seen.

I must admit at first I really was not fond of Chishu Ryu's character, but over the course of the story he grew on me. As for Setsuko Hara is an amazing example of kindness and servility, but also the undisputed muse of Yasujiro Ozu.  Late Spring also plays off the conflict between the old and new not to mention the traditional Japan and western culture. It's not a blatant present, but the allusion to Coca Cola and Gary Cooper reminds the us that this is a post-war Japan still recuperating from an awful war. That's the backdrop of this film and its part of what makes Ozu's human drama all the more striking. Despite, where it is situated in the historical context, Late Spring is a timeless film giving calculated insight into human relationships.

4.5/5 Stars