Ozu’s Noriko trilogy

A Japanese film director named Yasujiro Ozu made three wonderful films that are known as the Noriko trilogy, as the main character is a 28 year old woman named Noriko (played by the radiant Setsuko Hara). They are:

1. Banshun (Late Spring), 1949
2. Bakushu (Early Summer), 1951
3. Tokyo Monogatari (Tokyo Story), 1953

MLW and I watched the first film and loved it. It's in black and white, with jaunty music, and generally feels quaint in a 1950s kinda way – you know, cardigans and bicycles with baskets and clean trains. The film begins with a circle of Japanese women performing traditional tea ceremony, sitting on the floor and dressed in kimono. Noriko is within a traditional home, and is close to her widowed, academic dad. Near the beginning of the film, a visitor asks Noriko 'How old are you?' and she replies, 'Twenty-eight' and he says, 'Shouldn't you be getting married?' (or words to that effect). And this is the crux of the film: should Noriko stay unmarried and look after her father, or should she 'abandon' him for marriage? Along the way, Noriko must face the first signs of a changing culture and a changing role for women. She considers applying for a job as a typist. She sometimes wears Western clothes, depending on who she's with and what she's doing. Etc. The film runs its course; beautiful and thoughtful and real. Ozu's direction is calm and quiet and allows the elements of the film to do their thing – the actors act, the characters develop, the scenery sets the scene etc. No over-egged puddings in sight. To watch a film like this is such an intimate experience; you are drawn into the story more fully because it doesn't try particularly hard to catch your attention. It feels real, and you invest yourself in it somehow.

So. The first film ran its course and we eagerly awaited the arrival of the second film in the post (thanks to amazon's dvd rental service). We had, of course, expected the story to pick up where it had left off. Well. Quelle surprise. The second film begins and you quickly recognise Noriko, but there is confusion: the empty house is now full of people – children and parents and grandparents. The actor who played Noriko's dad is now her brother (and looking a lot younger). Their parents are both alive and well. And then someone asks Noriko, 'How old are you?' and she replies, 'Twenty-eight' and he says, 'Shouldn't you be getting married?' And suddenly you realise that this second film is not a continuation of the first but rather a reconfiguration of it. Ozu deals with this in so many subtle ways. For example, this time Noriko already has a job as a typist. All the familiar camera angles in her home are reversed or altered, so that like the characters, the setting is the same but different (v. subtle this one but brilliant). In this film, Noriko's struggle is for independence. Her parents want to see her married before they retire to the countryside. In the first film she accepted that her husband would be chosen for her, but in this film she wants to do the choosing. The other aspects of her life and culture are likewise refigured. But the film is delivered in the same vein, although there is just a touch more light and humour in this one, I think.

We were not that surprised to find, therefore, that something similar happened in the third film. This time, Noriko is the daughter-in-law of the actor who was her father in the first film and her brother in the second. Now Noriko is the widow. Her parents-in-law come to Tokyo to visit their children, but their children's lives have no space for them. So it is Noriko who shows them love and hospitality, and again the question of Noriko's age and marriage (re-marriage in this case) are central to the film. The culture, the country, the people have changed again, becoming less recognisable to the old parents than in the previous two films. In the first film you saw tea ceremony, in the second a Bhuddist temple, and in the third an open-topped bus tour of Tokyo. This is a sad film, we felt, for a number of reasons.

Together, the films are remarkable. Each on their own, these films are remarkable. The lives of the characters resonate in your own life when you watch the films. Intimate and present, these films are amongst the best I've seen (and I've seen a few).

Here are summaries of the three, borrowed from an excellent web page on the subject. I couldn't give a clearer precis.

[Source of the film descriptions.]

In the first film,Late Spring,

Professor Shukichi Somiya (Chisyu Ryu) has dedicated much of his time and energy to his studies, leaving his daughter, Noriko (Setsuko Hara), with the task of managing their household. It is a comfortable and nurturing environment that suits them well until one day when Noriko meets an old family friend, a widower named Onodera (Masao Mishima), who has recently remarried. Onodera reminds Shukichi of his parental duties to see Noriko marry, and Shukichi's sister, Masa Taguchi (Haruko Sugimura), suggests that his assistant, Hattori (Jun Usami), should make a suitable husband for Noriko. Upon hearing that Hattori and Noriko spent an afternoon together bicycling to the beach, Shukichi attempts to elicit Noriko's feelings on the subject of marriage, but is derailed when she explains that Hattori is already engaged. Unfazed by the disappointing news, Masa then presents Noriko with a new prospect named Satake, a Tokyo University graduate with a promising future at Nitto Chemicals who, she assuredly describes, looks just like Gary Cooper, "especially his mouth …but not the top half." In an attempt to persuade Noriko to meet the potential suitor, Masa casually brings up the topic of her plans to act as a matchmaker between Shukichi and an attractive young widow named Mrs. Miwa (Kuniko Miyake), and Shukichi continues the deception in order to help Noriko overcome her ambivalence. After observing a polite exchange between Shukichi and Mrs. Miwa during a Noh play, Noriko realizes that things cannot remain as they are, and gradually comes to a sad realization and acceptance of a life apart from her adoring father.

In the second film,Early Summer,

An independent-minded 28-year old woman living in cosmopolitan, postwar Tokyo may seem immune from the societal pressures of marriage, but in Noriko's (Setsuko Hara) environment, it is a perennially surfacing, unavoidable topic. Her father, Shukichi (Ichirô Sugai), and mother, Shige (Chieko Higashiyama), are unable to retire to her uncle's house in the provincial town of Yamato until their duty to marry off Noriko to a worthy suitor has been fulfilled. Her visits with school friends invariably break down into playful arguments between the married and unmarried women. Even her office director offers to introduce her to a 40-year old business acquaintance, providing her photographs of the obscured prospective suitor to take home to show her family. Upon learning of Noriko's suitor, her brother Koichi (Chishu Ryu) takes it upon himself to investigate the businessman's suitability (as the businessman similarly dispatches a detective to inquire about Noriko), and encourages their marriage, despite the age difference. Meanwhile, Koichi's recently widowed friend and colleague, Kenkichi Yabe (Ryudan Nimoto) has been transferred to an agricultural province. During Noriko's farewell visit to the Yabe family, Kenkichi's mother (Haruko Sugimura) confesses her hope for her son to marry Noriko, an offer that she impulsively accepts. However, her family is less receptive to the idea, believing that Kenkichi's modest income and young child would lead their beloved Noriko to a life of hardship.

In the third film,Tokyo Story,

[The] story of the Hirayamas, an aging couple from the provincial town of Onomichi who travel to postwar reconstructed Tokyo in order to visit their children, who, in turn, seem to have little interest or time to be with them. Their pediatrician son promises to take them sightseeing through Tokyo, only to be called away on an emergency. Their daughter Shige (Haruko Sugimura) promises to take them to the theater, but cannot leave her beauty salon. Only their widowed daughter-in-law, Noriko (Setsuko Hara), seems genuinely pleased to see them, and takes a day off from work to show them around Tokyo. Not knowing how to entertain their parents (and to save money), the siblings decide to send them to a noisy, crowded spa. Unable to enjoy themselves, the elderly couple return early, only to be sent away for the evening when their unexpected arrival interferes with Shige's scheduled club meeting. Consequently, Mrs. Hirayama (Chieko Higashiyama) spends a final evening with Noriko before heading back to Onomichi, and Mr. Hirayama (Chishu Ryu) finds some old friends in town, hoping to be invited to spend the evening, but in the process, gets hopelessly drunk. On the following day, Mrs. Hirayama offers the adult children some words of reassurance at the train station, and the couple leave.

Further reading: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

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