Lost in the Movies: late spring
Showing posts with label late spring. Show all posts
Showing posts with label late spring. Show all posts

The Favorites - Late Spring (#78)


The Favorites is a series briefly exploring films I love, to find out what makes them - and me - tick. Late Spring (1949/Japan/dir. Yasujiro Ozu) appeared at #78 on my original list.

What it is • In postwar Japan, 27-year-old Noriko lives in a cozy arrangement with her father, situated perfectly between the travails of the past and the uncertainties of the future. Life is a series of pleasant household chores, refreshing excursions to a Tokyo museum or the beach (whose looming Coca-Cola sign, along with Noriko's slacks and sweater, stand as a modern/Westernized contrast to the traditionally-dressed tea ceremony that opens the film), and playful, bantering conversations with old friends and relatives. The film deceptively thrusts us into this particular moment in Noriko's life, lulling us into believing that this is how it has always been, and always could be. But in fact the situation is tenuous and fleeting. Noriko has only just recovered from an illness incurred during the harsh years of the war and she is expected to marry. She has no skills that she could apply outside of the home (her friend, an independent divorcee working as a stenographer, chides her wanting a job of her own). But Noriko doesn't want to marry and her father, at least until he is pressured, does not seem especially eager to lose her either. They have a close bond and we sense that all the unspoken tragedies of the past - her mother's death, the harshness of the war years, the poverty and humiliation of occupation - have only forged their desire to remain within a comfortable cocoon. Miraculously, as with much of Yasujiro Ozu's work, the placid, soothing surface of what we see both conceals and suggests the storm offscreen. The film is as deeply wise as it is seemingly simple, and with that wisdom comes both sadness and acceptance. The arrival of the late spring is little comfort for those who enjoyed their hibernation.

Why I like it •

Cinepoem: Emily Dickinson's After Great Pain (video)


Update 1/3: The video is finally up!!

After a very long delay I have finally found the time to assemble my newest Cinepoem video, joining Emily Dickinson's "After great pain, a formal feeling comes..." with mostly empty shots from Yasujiro Ozu's Late Spring. The first minute of the video is taken up by a free-form montage/collage whose frenetic pace offsets the contemplative mood of the second half. It's also partly inspired by a dream I had about six weeks ago. The Vimeo upload follows, and the YouTube embed appears after the jump.



Noir and Naturalism 1946 - 1949 • "32 Days of Movies" Day 8


The eighth chapter in "32 Days of Movies", an audiovisual tour through 366 films.
(2015 update: included Vimeo embed after the jump)


View "Chapter 8: Noir and Naturalism"


Noir and Naturalism

Waking up in the postwar world, it was as if all the jitters and anxiety that had been submerged for the war effort were now out in the open. Already, a new style/genre/sensibility/movement had been developing (though it was too unconscious and informal to fit some of those terms). Later dubbed "film noir," this perspective scanned the hardened landscape with jaundiced eyes, yet with an undercurrent of wounded romanticism that made this dark world something you wanted to plunge into again and again. Meanwhile, both overseas and in Hollywood, an "opening" was occurring in the classically enclosed studio style.

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