Early Summer is one of three Ozu melodramas featuring Hara Setsuko as a character with the given name of ‘Noriko’. In 1951 Hara starred in three films, each one by a ‘master’ of Japanese cinema of the 1950s. She starred in The Idiot for Kurosawa Akira and Repast for Naruse Mikio, either side of her film with Ozu that year. In each of her three films with Ozu, Noriko is an unmarried woman and the plot in different ways involves her marital status. The new post-war world in Japan still saw fathers and older brothers in some way responsible for finding a husband for an unmarried daughter, even though the place of women in Japanese society was beginning to change. That is the central concern of Early Summer. In Late Spring (1949), Noriko is the unmarried daughter of a widower, played by a heavily-aged Ryû Chishû and in Tokyo Story (1953) she is herself a widow and pays more attention as a daughter-in-law to her husband’s aged parents than their own grown-up children. It’s fair to say that these three films are perhaps the most celebrated of Ozu’s films in the West.
In some ways this particular film references more closely the precise moment of its time setting than the other two films. At one point the grandfather of the extended family spends a few moments reflecting on his son who is still missing after the war. Some military personnel are still returning from ‘the South’ (Philippines or the more isolated islands?) but the grandfather feels that his second son must be dead – displaying an acceptance of fate. On the other hand the Mamiya extended family has two young grandsons and there is one sequence in which ‘Boys Day’ is celebrated and all the boys in the neighbourhood converge on the household for a party during which they play with a model railway set-up. This will become a source of discord in the household as the boys demand that their father buys them more track for the railway. The older boy would have been born during the war but the younger boy is a post-war child and both are part of the ‘new Japan’. Small boys were a feature of Ozu’s early films in the 1930s and they will appear again in Ohayo! (Good Morning!) from 1959 when they clamour for a TV set in a narrative in which the theme of the coming consumerism and economic growth is more prevalent.
In 1951 Japanese society is in a transition period. It is still formally under Occupation (but this is never mentioned) and the economic miracle hasn’t properly started yet. The Mamiya family is dependent on the two incomes of Koichi (Ryû Chishû), the father of the two boys and his sister Noriko. Koichi is a doctor working in what appears to be a laboratory or a hospital and Noriko is a secretary/PA to a businessman. Brother and sister work in Tokyo and commute (by train, of course – this is an Ozu film!) from the family home in Kamakura. Even with these two incomes to support a household of five adults and two children, money is a little tight. Koichi’s wife Fumiko (Miyake Kuniko) doesn’t work outside the home and Koichi’s parents, Shukichi (Sugai Ichirô) and Shige (Higashiyama Chieko) are retired. Ozu didn’t seem to worry about the ages of his actors – several are playing much older or younger than their real ages. Ryû Chishû plays something around his real age of 46 as Koichi but in 1949 in Late Spring he plays Noriko’s aged father and again he plays a grandfather in Tokyo Story. The economic situation is symbolised by Noriko’s purchase of an expensive cake which she and Fumiko feel guilty about eating and hide from the boys. The boys’ call for more railway track for their model railway, Koichi appears one day with a parcel they assume is the coveted track, only to be dismayed when they discover it is a loaf of bread. Ozu and his writing partner Noda Kôgo often cast the father as a doctor in their scripts. At this time, the doctor’s income creates what we might think of as a lower middle-class family. In the later films the father is often a business man and the family is wealthier. The ‘tight money’ in 1951 is important in relation to Noriko’s marriage because when she leaves the family will be broken up. Koichi’s salary alone will not support his parents as well. The major theme of Ozu’s family melodramas is the break up of the traditional Japanese family for both economic and societal reasons.
Noriko is 28 and in danger of becoming an ‘old maid’ in this society. Tradition says that the men of the family should choose a suitable husband for her. But the war and the Occupation changed the status of women. There had been a long struggle for female suffrage but women voted for the first time in 1946. Koichi, in a rather stern portrayal by Ryû Chishû, says that young women have become ‘impudent’ since the war, but Noriko knows she can choose a husband if she wants. The script emphasises the change by offering us Noriko and her equally ‘unmarried’ friend Aya being snubbed by their ex-schoolmates who are now married, claiming their lives are now very different.
Another way in which this film is slightly different from other Ozu films is in its locations. Kamakura would later become strongly associated with Ozu to the extent that he is buried there. It is a significant distance from Tokyo and actually in the separate prefecture of Kanagawa, on the coast. It had already featured as a location in Late Spring and it was in fact the home of Shochiku’s Ofana Studio from 1936 to 1995 and used by Ozu for his ‘contemporary’ (gendai-geki) films. Many critics have noted that a scene in which Noriko and Fumiko walk along the beach and over sand dunes is highly unusual in that cinematographer Atsuta uses what appears to be a crane shot for the only time in his films with Ozu. The railway features in several scenes and we see Noriko on Kitikamakura Station as well as grandfather waiting by the level crossing. When Koriko’s elderly uncle comes to stay with the Mamiyas, he comes from Yamoto, quite some distance from Kamakura, further North up the coast of Honshu. There are also some unusual images of Tokyo. The view from the office Noriko shares with her boss is down a street in the business district and when she meets Kenkichi for a coffee the view out of the café is of the onion domes of the Japanese (Russian) Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Resurrection. During the same meeting Kenkichi tells Noriko he was reading the war novel Wheat and Soldiers by Ashihei Hino when Shoji (Noriko’s brother the soldier who is still ‘missing’) sent him an ear of wheat. Earlier Kenkichi and Noriko learned they were both reading the 8 volume story of Les Thibault by Roger Martin du Gard, winner of the Nobel Prize in 1937.
It’s not really ‘spoiling’ the narrative to reveal that it leads up to a point when Noriko realises that she is in danger of being eased into a marriage which her family (her brother, sister-in-law and parents) all approve. Her potential marriage partner is a 40 year-old bachelor business man she has only seen in photos. She will have to act quickly to choose someone else herself and when the opportunity arises she does indeed act swiftly. The family is dispersed. Her parents join the uncle in Yamato and Noriko starts her married life in Akita, a region on the West coast of Honshu, but further North than Yamoto. The Japanese title of the film translates as something like ‘The Barley Harvest season’ and the film ends with a long shot of a field of grain. Like many other aspects of the film there is a question mark here about the subtitles and the translation of dialogue. Is this a field of barley or wheat? In many cultures barley, wheat and maize are often referred to simply as ‘corn’.
Early Summer feels different also because there is a greater variety of ‘pillow’ or ‘resting/intermediate’ shots between sequences. These static shots are often regarded as not contributing to the narrative but occasionally might be seen as symbolic in some way. One is a shot of one of the caged birds kept by grandfather. Another is a close shot of the Great Buddha of Kamakura. I also noticed the music more in this film. It is used quite often in subtle ways. The older members of the family go to see a kabuki performance which Noriko and Aya catch on the radio. This more traditional form of entertainment is a contrast to the French literary classic read by Noriko and Kenkichi. All of this adds up to a film which seems much richer in its sociological details than many of the other Ozu films of this period. I was also taken by the discussion about what ‘love’ means when Aya quizzes Noriko. I’ve had to go back and re-watch scenes because I can’t remember all the details clearly. In many ways I would have liked this film to be much longer than its 125 minutes. I’d like to know more about Fumiko the sister-in-law and about where the Mamiya family came from before they moved to the house in Kamakra – a line of dialogue suggests that they moved into the house when Noriko was 12, which would mean the mid 1930s. Noriko is being positioned as the ‘modernised woman’ in Japan. Visually this is confirmed by the fact that she always wears Western dresses or skirts – whereas all the other women are dressed in traditional costumes all or part of the time. Finally, I am confused by the idea that Noriko is a ‘woman of Tokyo’. Nearly all the summaries of the narrative suggest that the Mamiyas live in Tokyo but even today, Kamakura is an hour’s train journey from Tokyo. Does this mean that Noriko is being defined by where she works (and perhaps went to University)? The other confusion is Aya’s home above a restaurant. Is this a restaurant in Tokyo or Kamakura? It seems to be in Tokyo and that means Noriko’s best friend is in Tokyo. Does that confirm Noriko’s ‘modernity’? I know I get hung up on realism but these are important elements of the story.
I think I could rewatch this film several times, there is so much to think about. It may just be that Early Summer could replace Late Spring as my favourite Ozu film. It is available on Blu-ray and seems to be available to stream on Apple and Amazon. Here’s the original Japanese trailer with added subtitles from Criterion:
https://www.criterionchannel.com/videos/early-summer-trailer
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