Very disappointing...

Really Surprised!

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Viewed at 2016 Berlin Film Festival in restored classics section.Bakushu" a mid-to-later career landmark, was one of a series of Ozu films with seasonal titles -- Early Spring, Late Spring, Early Autumn, etc. which, like most of Ozu's post-war films, deal with issues ranging from communication problems between generations to the rising role of women in post-war Japan. In this one, Hara Setsuko, Ozu's fetish lead actress, is Noriko (her usual name in Ozu pictures) who, while extremely attractive is very choosy and is getting a little old for marriage at age 28. A match is set up with a well-heeled older man -- a good prospect -- but Noriko, who has a mind of her own, will end up running off to the northern sticks (Akita Province) with a childhood friend, a widower with a child and an ex-buddy of her brother who was killed in action. The family strongly opposes this unseemly match up but finally accepts Noriko's firm decision, an early act of Woman's Lib Japanese style. Hara was an actress with a stature at the time equivalent to Katherine Hepburn in Hollywood, and her older brother in this film, Chishu Ryu, would become her father-in-law in Ozu's most famous masterpiece, Tokyo Story, two years later. Ryu might be seen as a low key Spencer Tracy, but a more subtle and tasteful actor. He appeared in 160 films in a remarkable six decade career. I can proudly say that I was once invited by him to a private tea ceremony at his home in Ôfuna near Shochiko studios. Bakushu is essential Ozu and quintessential Hara Setsuko. Setsuko, who embodied the woman every Japanese wishes he could marry, never married herself and abruptly retired from the screen in 1963, the same year that Ozu died. She then went into seclusion à la Greta Garbo, in Kamakura where most of her films with Ozu had been shot, forever shunning public appearances and refusing to grant interviews until the end. The end came this past September when Hara was ninety-five. She is famously quoted as saying that she never really liked acting but only did it to support her large family. Maybe that's why she was so utterly real on screen. She wasn't acting -- she was just t h e r e.

Ozu's films are never about anything extraordinary or remarkable. They are always very subdued, quiet, calm, genuine and very real. The film follows the life of a Japanese family post WWII. The biggest dilemma that occurs is making sure one of the daughters gets married.The subject matter is interesting. It's a country going through changes and at the same time a lot of men of the daughter's age had died during the war, so the family is starting to lose their patience in finding a husband for her. The tempo is slow and calm. It reflects real life in a good way. The situations are normal and almost every dialogue scene feels like actual conversations and not written. It can be a little too slow for some people, so be ready that the film will take it's time.The emotional core wasn't as strong as in "Tokyo Monogatari". I didn't latch on to the characters that much in this one. So, I wasn't that invested in the middle act, which was the act I thought was the weakest. The opening and ending I thought were the strongest.It makes up for its mistakes with its beautiful setting and locations which are wonderfully captured. The cinematography is really well done and the music is relaxing.

There are several repeating themes and symbols in Ozu's movies, especially the three films in his famous trilogy around the Japanese 50s where 'Early Summer' is the second installment. For example the film starts with a seashore shot, with waves hitting the sand in eternity and ends with the image of an endless field and a mountain in the background. There two vibrant images are prelude and ending to a film which superficially can be called a feminist family drama, an apparently banal story of a nice and independent girl in a traditional family under pressure to get married. And yet there is a meaning in the relation between the day-to-day family life and the universal dimension of nature - an almost sacred dimension I would say. Ozu treats family life with the full attention and respect that a great artist approaches big universal themes. For him the family is the basic building block of the Japanese society, and family relations are the fabric of the society. Day to day life is filmed with piety, as in a religious ceremony.Recurring themes abound in 'Early Summer' and will be easily recognized by those who have seen the first film in the trilogy - 'Late Spring': Ozu's passion for trains. The theater as a component of the spiritual life, and as an institution that enables communication between the characters. No music or just minimalist soundtrack as the minuet track that accompanies the family scenes, enhancing the feelings of joy and ritualism. And of course, we have here again the magnificent Setsuko Hara, with the fragility, dignity and interior light that makes of her the Japanese Ingrid Bergman.By telling an apparently minimalistic family story Ozu tells here again a story about the Japan he was living in, a country trying to come to terms with itself after an horrific war, defeat and occupation. What strikes at the first sight is the normality - the first few tens of minutes of the film could have happened in any of the Western countries of the period and almost nothing reminds the pressure of history around. And yet, this does exist. The elder parents carry with them the memory of a disappeared son. In a restaurant, at the end of a scene where the characters rejoice in jubilation at memories of their young age and past years, and about how the place remained unchanged a rare (at Ozu) move of camera discovers a wall hidden until then with a poster advertising an American airline. The message is low-key but yet distinct and clear - the victors of the war may have imposed their economic and political structures, but the level of pollution of the day-to-day life is relatively low and has little signification relative to the big picture. Eternal Japan survives, tradition, focus on work, and on family life is the key if this survival. From a visual point of view 'Early Summer' is an even more sophisticated and beautiful film than 'Late Spring'. Many of the scenes of the interiors of the Japanese houses are magnificent, with a symmetric framing of the space, and successive walls and sliding doors that define the perspective and allow for concurrent movements or dialogs to happen in parallel giving a feeling of complexity in the good sense of the word, and helping actually explain the intrigue and progress it all around. Acting is superb, with some of the actors returning here from previous films of Ozu, who directs their words, silence, and movements with sympathy and deep understanding. Even if some of the dialogs at the end of the film are too explicit and sounded didactic and melodramatic to my contemporary and 'Western' taste, by the time we have gotten there we are already knowing and trusting the characters too well so that we can forgive them for speaking a few wooden language words.It's a simple and sensible film, and a good introduction for those who start exploring the Ozu universe.

I had seen Tokyo Story and respected it. But Early Summer is a charming, poignant and very human movie that stands the test of time. It is the story of Noriko, a 28-year-old administrative assistant who is under pressure from her family to marry. To put this in perspective, in traditional Japan, a woman married by age 25, or she was considered a "Christmas cake "-- nobody wanted it after the 25th! It is not as common in Japan now for women to face such pressure, especially since so many Japanese women are choosing to stay single, now that they have the money to be independent. However, Noriko's case would have been common up until the current generation of women.While the war is not a character in the movie, there are threads that connect Early Summer to World War II. The movie takes place in 1951, just before Japan emerged from the U.S. occupation, and before Japanese society had its great explosion of wealth in the 1960s. It is a snapshot of a time that no longer exists, although the family conflicts are universal. I plan to add Early Summer to my list of top movies and look forward to viewing it again.