Early Summer

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heinrichvon One of Ozu's very greatest movies, rich, funny and deeply moving. Setsuko Hara is sensational as usual. The last shot of the barley field is one of the most beautiful in all of Ozu's cinema, and is a reference and tribute to the Japanese war dead, though you have to be sensitive to the cultural subtext to get this. This was the last Ozu film to be chosen as best of the year by Japanese critics. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 05/18/23 Full Review Dave S Noriko (Setsuko Hara) is a 28-year-old woman living with her family in Tokyo, content with her station in life despite ongoing pressure from her family to get married. Yasujiro Ozu's Early Summer is a story of one woman's resistance to traditional Japanese values, told is a serene style that is distinctly the work of Ozu - a subtle but effective music score, low camera angles, primarily stationary camerawork (the handful of tracking shots are actually a bit jarring), and perfectly framed and blocked shots. There are a couple of scenes that feel out of place (the two women chasing each other playfully around the table, for instance), but it is otherwise what we have come to expect from Ozu – an austere and tightly structured film about family and society. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 03/01/23 Full Review spencer p Yasujiro Ozu expands on the themes of his previous "Late Spring" with a bigger family and more enjoyable ensemble work. Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review Audience Member Relationships between the characters are di·ingenuous and fake. Despite the ending taking a semi unexpected turn the entire movie still lacked simple human feelings and Emotions. The drab and emptiness of the story never became interesting enough for me to consider it rewatching it. Rated 0.5/5 Stars •  Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 02/18/23 Full Review Audience Member Despite the leisurely tone which is so characteristic of Ozu's works, it strikes me that "Early Summer" is actually a confluence of many emotionally complex themes, all funneling together in a beautifully bittersweet statement about the quietly painful transience of life (mono no aware.) The themes will surely prove familiar to fans of Ozu, yet the dynamics surrounding those themes produce a wholly unique experience of this master director's sensibility. Comedy mingles with subdued devastation, and we are deeply moved by the film's penetrating and yet unadorned introspection into the emotional lives of its characters. This is a film that has a lot on its mind, and one would be hard-pressed to pin down the true focal point of the film's vision. That is not to say that it is scattered, but complex; ultimately weaving together a tapestry of family life governed only by the unpredictable impulses of the heart and conscience. "Early Summer" is certainly a must for fans of Ozu, and is guaranteed to impress, sadden, and delight in nearly equal measure. Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/14/23 Full Review William L "Why do you watch old movies? They're so boring and irrelevant!" *Cue Yasujirō Ozu creating characters talking about how their parents are out of touch, they don't want to get married or have kids, and lamenting how their friends are drifting away as they age. The middle and 'least acclaimed' of Ozu's so-called 'Noriko Trilogy' is still well-recognized as an important piece of post-war Japanese cinema. There's plenty of Ozu's familiar style - the quiet domesticity filled with care and tragedy in a more subtle, but emotionally undiluted way. Characters expressing emotion from behind a screen of formality and Japanese traditionalism, but still with sincerity; as a director, Ozu was so great at creating and capturing subtext in his actors' performances. Early Summer explores intergenerational conflict, both for its own sake and in the context of a changing Japan, with Setsuko Hara's Noriko as the smart young professional in Western attire engaging in gentle conflict with her kimono-clad mother (after not so easily navigating streets full of modern automobiles). While representative of a larger trend, the screenplay doesn't overlook tossing in idiosyncratic behavior for its characters to lend a degree of authenticity. Oddly enough, I think it may have been the more varied shooting locations (compared to Tokyo Story and its contemporaries) that may have taken this film slightly down a peg in status among Ozu's films, feeling just a bit more wandering as a result. Still poignant and relevant, though; half of hardcore movie fanatics are 20-somethings that don't want to get married and would rather be pulling a Noriko: eating noodles alone in the kitchen, despite the disapproval of their parents. Independent of the rest of the film, seeing two kids loudly, jokingly calling their half-deaf grandfather an idiot to get an authentic smile out of him is just adorable. (4.5/5) Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 07/03/22 Full Review Read all reviews

Early Summer

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