Early Summer (1951)
Directed by Yasujirô Ozu

Film Review

On the face of it, Early Summer (a.k.a. Bakushû) would seem to be one of Yasujirô Ozu's simplest films - another of his 'home dramas' depicting conflict between the generations in a way that mirrors the wider rift in Japanese society between tradition and modernity.  As with much of Ozu's cinema, first impressions can be very deceiving, and on closer examination Early Summer reveals itself to be one of the director's most complex and profound films, rewarding the intellect not only with its rich characterisation but also with its raft of underlying themes, which range from the practical (a woman's right to choose her own husband) to the deeply metaphysical (the meaning of life, no less).

To gain a sense of the growing importance of women in Japanese society across the decades of the 20th century, all you have to do is to watch Ozu's surviving films right through, in the order in which they were made.  In Ozu's earliest films, women were either hardly visible or else mere plot cyphers.  By the end of Ozu's career, women had come to dominate his films, and it can be argued that his female characters are more interesting, more fully developed and more humane than any of his male protagonists.  The most memorable of all Ozu's female characters is an independently minded young woman named Noriko who appeared in three of his films - Late Spring (1949), Early Summer (1951) and Tokyo Story (1953) - in each case played to perfection by Setsuko Hara, a remarkably gifted actress for whom Ozu had the fondest admiration.

In each of her three films, Noriko is something of a rebel, a modern woman who dares to go against convention, but always for noble rather than selfish reasons.  In Late Spring, she refuses to marry because she cannot bring herself to abandon her ageing father.  In Early Summer, she marries out of a sense of duty to the brother who was killed in the war.  In Tokyo Story, she is so bound to the memory of her dead husband that she is unable to remarry, and so must endure the hardship of a single mother.  In each case, Noriko makes a moral decision that runs counter to either Japanese tradition or modern values.  The outcome is never a happy one, but the important thing is that she has the freedom to choose her own destiny, rather than have it chosen for her by her nearest male relatives, as had been the fate for almost all women in Japan since time immemorial.

Another crucial theme of Early Summer is the Buddhist notion of the unimportance of life's transience.  Change is not something that sits easily in Japanese culture.  From the beginning of the Showa era in the mid-1920s, Japan had undergone a massive social change fuelled by imperialistic ambitions and relentless industrialisation, but it remained a fundamentally conservative nation, bound to traditions that stretched back centuries.  In the 1950s, when Ozu was making his finest films, Japanese society was as hierarchical, rule-bound and class-conscious as ever, but the relentless onslaught of western values was beginning to have an impact. "All things must pass away", the last words uttered by Buddha, encapsulate the essence of Ozu's work.  Change is inevitable so why resist it?  All that matters is the present moment, the 'eternal now' in which we all live.  The past and future are merely an illusion.

To a greater or lesser extent, every character in Early Summer has an aversion to change.  The older generation, represented by the aged parents and a comically half-deaf old uncle, are visibly distressed by how much things have changed in their lifetimes.  They can hardly imagine that things will be better in the future and appear resigned to the fact that they will not be happier than they are now.  The patriarchal son Koichi Mamiya (played by Ozu regular Chishû Ryû) is just as conservative and appears alienated from both his sister, Noriko, who would rather spend her time amassing photographs of Katharine Hepburn than looking for a husband, and his young sons, who have already been lost, Faust-like, to the demonic forces of consumerism. 

Noriko is as set in her ways as her brother.  She is happy as a spinster and clearly enjoys the freedom she has, which she flaunts by going out on the town with her girlfriends and impulse-buying expensive gateaux she cannot afford.  Her little nephews are no better.  Self-centred little brats, they are so absorbed in their trainset that nothing else matters.  When their father brings home a loaf of bread instead of extra tracks for their already ample trainset, they throw a wild tantrum and go A.W.O.L.  The same resistance to change is shown by characters outside the family.  Kenkichi Yabe and his mother are so upset by the prospect of having to move to a grim province 'up north' that they both look as if they are facing a ritual execution.  No one wants anything to change, but it must come.  Life depends upon change, an unending cycle of birth, death and renewal - a fact that Ozu underscores in the film's beautifully poetic coda depicting a bridal procession wending its way through a field of wheat.

Film Synopsis

The Mamiyas are an extended family living under one roof in Kamakura.  An old couple, Shukichi and Shige, share their house with their son Koichi, a surgeon who is married and has two young sons, and daughter Noriko, who works as a secretary in Tokyo.  When an elderly uncle comes to visit, Noriko comes under pressure from her entire family to find a husband and start a family of her own.  Her employer, Satake, suggests that Mr Manabe, a 40-year-old friend of his, might be a suitable match.  Even though she is nearly 30, Noriko is no hurry to marry but she agrees to consider Manabe as a possible husband.  Her family are naturally encouraged by this development.  But then Noriko learns that her dead brother's childhood friend Kenkichi Yabe, a colleague of Koichi, is to be posted to Akita, in a northern province far from his present home.  Yabe's mother is so distraught by the prospect of this move that Noriko makes up her mind in an instant to marry Yabe to make it more bearable for her.  When her family learn of her decision they react as if Noriko has taken leave of her senses.  For her to marry a poor widower with a son is surely a disgrace...