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by Earl Jackson

In 1969, Masahiro Shinoda released “Double Suicide”, his version of Chikamatsu Monzaemon’s bunraku (puppet) play, “The Love Suicides Amajima” [心中天網島]. The film was striking in its use of the black-hooded puppeteers, the kuroko, to move the actors and change the deliberately artificial sets. The film was a hit with the international art film crowd in that it proved that Japanese avant-garde narrative cinema was not limited to Hiroshi Teshigahara’s adaptations of Kobo Abe novels. In later years, it would serve as a viewer-friendly introduction to the New Wave because, unlike the more difficult works of Kiju Yoshida or Nagisa Oshima, “Double Suicide” -to repurpose Gertrude Stein’s judgment of James Joyce – was the experimental film that anyone could understand.

In 2021, Ryusuke Hamaguchi takes up the challenge of integrating classical theater with contemporary cinema again, in his use of Chekov’s “Uncle Vanya” in his film “Drive My Car”. At first glance,...

One of the trademarks of Yasuhiro Ozu’s family dramas is the remarkably realistic presentation of everyday life in Japan. “The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice” also entails this characteristic, but also moments of comedy that deem the movie quite approachable.

The film revolves around a childless, middle-aged couple in post-war Japan, Taeko and Mokichi. Taeko is deeply unsatisfied with her wedding, and channels her frustration through behaviour that could be perceived extreme at the time, cheating her husband to go on a trip with friends, or going on trips without notifying anyone. Furthermore, she mocks her husband to her girlfriends every chance she gets. Mokichi on the other hand, seems almost oblivious to his wife’s mentality, as he eventually starts frequenting a pachinko parlor run by a former army comrade, along with a young friend, Non. In the middle of this situation is their niece,...

Made the year before Yasujiro Ozu's masterpiece Tokyo Story, The Flavour Of Green Tea Over Rice is a gently enjoyable, if rather languorous, domestic drama - this time about the cracks beneath the surface of a middle-class marriage. The title takes its name from the way Mokichi (Shin Saburi) likes to eat his dinner - one of the many small ways his middle-class habits manage to irritate his more upper-class wife Taeko (Michiyo Kogure), who refers to him among her friends as Mr Bonehead.

He's actually a rather sweet, if dull, salary man, with an auspicious past in the army, whose arranged marriage to Taeko has evidently been more tolerable than smooth - with no children and increasing amounts of friction that reveals itself more through gesture than conversation. One of the places Mokichi goes after work is named the Bittersweet School of Life pachinko parlour - a hangout where.

The first film in Ozu’s oeuvre shot in colour, “Equinox Flower” depicts the younger generation in a more sympathetic light than the earlier works of the Japanese master. Based on the novel by Ton Satomi under the same title, “Equinox Flower” touches upon the typical Ozu themes of generation clashes and the omnipresent tensions between tradition and modernity.

Wataru Hirayama (Shin Saburi) is a businessman who looks for a proper husband for his daughter. In a speech at a friend’s wedding, he addresses the issue of arranged marriages. “You are lucky this is not happening in your generation” he seems to say to the newlyweds. Ironically, when later in the film a young man, Masahiko Taniguchi (Keiji Sada) enters his office to ask him for his daughter’s hand, Hirayama is conflicted, to say the least. Because Hirayama didn’t get to choose his daughter’s husband,...

There’s nothing like the term ‘Transcendental Style’ to intimidate a filmgoer, but have no fear: Yasujiro Ozu’s tale of a domestic trial is as accessible as I Love Lucy… only more substantial. The transcendental effect is being drawn into Ozu’s minimalist, precisely simplified and mysteriously profound directing style. Ten minutes in you wonder what the big deal is, but not much later one is hanging onto every cut, absorbed by tiny gestures and facial expressions. And yet it all seems natural. The Ozu ‘stasis’ some people mention is not at all static, but an X-Ray into everyday dramatic realities. With an entire second feature by Ozu, What Did the Lady Forget?

The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 989

1952 / B&w / 1:37 flat Academy / 116 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date August 27, 2019 / 39.95

Starring: Shin Saburi, Michiyo Kogure, Koji Tsuruta, Chishu Ryu, Chikage Awashima,...

It’s a strange feeling, being made abruptly aware of your own ignorance. One minute you can be happily spending your time being A Grownup, with A Car and A Sofa, then Bam. You’re six years old, everything is suddenly much taller than you and you’re chewing an olive with an expression of intense disgust. You dimly remember being told that one day your tastes will change, that sooner or later you’ll be Big Enough to appreciate olives and you’ll be able to join the proud ranks of The Adult, but deep down inside you know that it just can’t be true.

This is, without hyperbole, how I felt when I came to watch Equinox Flower. Billed as a comedy, the first colour picture from acclaimed Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu is a carefully and subtly observed study of teenage rebellion, paternal impotence and the rage...