Higanbana

It's pretty obvious when the film begins that it's one of Yasujirô Ozu's newest films. That's because unlike almost all of his movies, this one is filmed in color. In fact, it's his first color film. Like other Ozu films it features a camera positioned very low--like the cameraman is sitting on the floor. It's odd but works in Ozu's films because of the traditional Japanese tables and futons--all very close to the floor. The plot unfolds very slowly and the film also is a domestic drama--about a daughter who may be marrying and moving out of her home. This is a very common theme--young people moving to adulthood and the sort of conflicts this creates as well as conflicts between traditional and modern values . And, like so many of his later films, it features some of the same old reliable actors. One thing you've gotta say about Ozu--when he found a formula that worked, he REALLY stuck with it. While his films are adored and are often considered masterpieces, there is a strong sense of déjà vu as you watch them!

This is the story of a middle-aged man and his family. Early in on the film, you learn that the father and mother had an arranged marriage--something very common in Japan up until recently. You can tell that Dad was not thrilled by this and he even likes the idea of people picking their own spouses. Yet, when his own daughter wants to marry a man of her choosing, he refuses to give consent. He's adamant--even though he agrees with the concept of allowing your grown children to run their own lives--provided, of course, they are not HIS children! This is MILDLY humorous (it's cute the way the father gets manipulated repeatedly) and a nice critique of post-war Japan--when families, values and norms were all in flux. In other words, this man's conflicts were a mirror of conflicts in Japan as a whole--the old Japan and the new, and much less tradition-bound Japan.

While this is a beautifully made film, you should be aware that like so many of Ozu's films, it has a very leisurely pace. My advice is although he was a wonderful filmmaker, you might first try some more approachable directors films--such as Kurosawa or a Zatoichi film. That's because Western audiences often balk at such slow pacing (particularly here in hyperactive America). If you do watch it, brew a pot of tea or coffee to help you stay focused--it's worth it, as it's a sweet and exceptional film.

This line uttered by Ozu favorite, Chishu Ryu, toward the end of the story helps sum up the mixture of comedy and melancholy that pervades this excellent film. The other reviewers have well described the amusing irony of Wataru Harayama's (Shin Saburi) avuncular support of his friends' daughters' desires to marry for love but his shocked resistance when he finds out about his own daughter's similar desires. But alongside Ozu's depiction of the daughters' plans for their futures is that of the fathers' nostalgia for their pasts.

Harayama, Ryu's character Mikami, and their other friends from middle school days have stayed in touch and regularly compare notes about their carefree days before their own arranged marriages, workday routines, and worries about their daughters. In one scene of a class reunion they wear uniforms, sing songs, and recite elegiac poems. And the one wife we meet, Harayama's (brilliantly played by Kinuyo Tanaka), who has stoically borne her husband's discontent all these years, sees her patience rewarded as she becomes the bridge between him and his daughter.

One other note of reality--Yukiko, the delightfully liberated daughter of a family friend who conspires with Harayama's daughter to play a crucial trick on Harayama, was played by Fujiko Yamamoto who lit up every scene she was in. I wondered why I hadn't heard more about her, and found out from Wikipedia that at the height of her popularity in 1963, when her contract was up for renewal, she asked for some better terms and the head of her studio (Daiei) not only fired her but invoked an agreement with the other studios to prevent her from being hired by any of them. She never made another film. That's another glimpse of old Japan.

User reviewer Martin-f has an excellent summary ("Ozu at the top his game", martin-f from United Kingdom, 24 April 2006).

'Equinox Flower' is an incredible example of film art. It is my favorite (so far) film of Yasujirō Ozu. Ozu is a daring filmmaker because he handicaps himself almost completely. All of his contemporaries were moving their camera (e.g., the spectacular single-shot opening of Orson Welles's 1958 "Touch of Evil"). Ozu refuses to.

Ozu also refuses to provide dramatic subject material besides family arguments over whom a young girl marries. He also frequently has the camera on the floor looking up at his characters when they are seated, which is often. The actors are never allowed to veer off script, which often is banal dialogue. Finally, most of Ozu's imagery appears like a painting. This is Ozu's first color film; he makes quite a remarkable splash in this medium.

This is regarded as a comedy/romance. We should also say it concerns Japanese manners and patriarchy. We often see in Ozu's films a husband returning to the home from work, removing layers of his clothing and dropping them on the floor for his dutiful wife to take care of. (If Western males tried this there would be Hell to pay.) We see it multiple times here, and this husband/wife interaction helps identify the power relationship between big CEO and patriarch Wataru Hirayama (Shin Saburi) with his wife Kiyoko (Kinuyo Tanaka). At the film's opening when Wataru makes an impromptu speech at a wedding, he insults Kiyoko by publicly lamenting forced marriages like the one he had. Needless to day, Ozu does not plan on Kiyoko enduring these insults forever. She turns out to be a formidable rival.

There are three other young women. The woman playing daughter Sesuko's friend is great (i.e., who plays the pivotal trick on Wataru). She has a great role and she plays it very well.

Finally, Ozu's visual aesthetics are very well chosen and delightful. If you have the patience for 'Equinox Flower', it is very worthwhile.

The emptiness of the space in the very first images of "Equinox Flower" makes an impact on the viewer. An opening of this sort resembles those of Ozu's most famous films such as "Late Spring" and "Tokyo Story". However, soon we find out that "Equinox Flower" differs quite remarkably from these since it is essentially a comedy. In the first scene of the film Ozu instantly introduces the marriage motif -- a recurring subject in his oeuvre -- as two railroad workers are wondering the great amount of newly-weds. Only few artists have been able to establish a theme and set a tone, which are fully consistent with the rest of the work, so quickly yet still with such restraint and precision. Therefore, it is certain to the viewer from the start that what unfolds is the craft of a master.

At its heart, "Equinox Flower" is a tender comedy because it fluently combines two aspects, which too often appear as contradictory, the ironic and the melancholic. Striking is also the fact that the film is Ozu's first comedy in approximately two decades. One must go back to the silent days to find a benchmark. This choice of return seems to coincide with Ozu's new sympathy (though I use the word hesitantly) for the younger generation, whereas he so often has sympathized the elders. It seems to me that in "Equinox Flower" the lightness and hopeful attitude towards life, noticeable in Ozu's earlier films, merges with the Chekhovian wisdom and elegiac tone of his later oeuvre.

To an extent, "Equinox Flower" is a satirical treatise on the decline of parental and especially patriarchal authority in the Japanese family and society. However, Ozu is never hostile nor aggressive. He doesn't point out. He reveals. Although there are moments when Ozu lets us laugh at the protagonist's helplessness when trapped by his own outdated norms, Ozu never attacks on him. In addition to theme, Ozu's return to comedy also marked a turning point in his visual development because he used color for the first time, which later on became an inseparable element in his subsequent films. As a consequence, the world of colors in "Equinox Flower" is strikingly rich and precisely considered, leaving the viewer with several memorable and widely associative visual motifs.

"Equinox Flower" is in many ways what one might call a simple film. There's not much of a story going on, let alone action of any kind, nor surprising twists in plot. Nonetheless, the viewer (any viewer whether an admirer of Ozu or not) is left with a powerful impact by the rich simplicity of the visuals; and the utter beauty of details. Above all, "Equinox Flower" is purely based on Ozu's unique poetry of the mundane; a vital principle in his cinema.

Due to this simplicity, many western viewers have blamed, or at least explained their discontent, Ozu's films for a slow pace, but this criticism, however, doesn't really hit the mark because Ozu's films precisely create their own time in the poetic universe which differs from our world. In this rhythm or, in fact, Ozu's perception of time lies profound melancholy. The days go by, the clothes line dances in the wind, and emptiness prevails. In "Equinox Flower" the older generation remembers the war-time days, recalling especially its better times of carefree coexistence. In turn, such ideals as personal happiness and privacy threatened by the old, arranged, communal joy throb beneath the youth's dialogue. Ozu's characters are often aware of this melancholy -- human transience in the passage of time -- which brings sadness to their existence. A sensation that the old is about to vanish is always present, though so is the characters' ability to accept things as they are. As time is such an important theme for Ozu, his films can never be summed up with mere concepts such as "comedy" or "tragedy" since their (aesthetic) perspective is never restricted, but always reach to the most profound perspective of all, which is that of philosophy.

Is there a director in the history of cinema with a more distinct style than Yasujiro Ozu? 1958's Equinox Flower was Ozu's first colour film and concerns itself with one of his favourite themes – the family and it's discontents. The film is set during a time when arranged marriages were being challenged in Japan and it pits the emerging youth of the country, full of post war freedom and optimism, against their traditional parents who are finding it difficult to let go of their customs and ultimately their children.

A Tokyo businessman, Waturu Hirayama, is continually approached by friends for advice, friends who have become powerless as parents and are struggling to impose their will on their daughters. Hirayama's apparent disappointment and resignation regarding his own arranged marriage informs his advice throughout. Consequently he is often conciliatory and impartial, trying his best to get both sides to see each other's point of view. Neither traditional nor modern in his outlook, instead he takes a humanist approach and strives for harmony amongst the protagonists.

However, when a young man he has never met before enters his office and asks him for his own daughter's hand in marriage he finds it difficult to adopt this approach for himself and his family. On the one hand, he is initially hurt by the apparent lack of respect and involvement that he feels he should have been afforded by the young couple. He questions his role as a father and feels castrated by this power being taken out of hands. On the other hand, though, he suffers a sense of loss. He has nothing personal against the young man, and after making enquiries, is assured of his good nature. Nevertheless, rather than gaining a son, he's acutely aware that he is losing a daughter and, with that, some of his own identity. Not only losing her in marriage but also to a new way of life, a new culture where Hirayama is unsure of his role.

In a broader sense, Equinox Flower, also offers an insight into the fast socio-cultural changes in post-war Japan as it becomes more influenced by capitalism and Western culture. Throughout the film, Hirayama alludes to the fact that his business and his workload are becoming increasingly busier. Scenes are often interspersed with images of industrial development and progress mixed with more traditional scenes of mountain ranges, the countryside and churches. It's also worth noting that, throughout the film, it is largely the women that are seen as the advocates of change, trying to find greater equality in a patriarchal society. The men, in comparison, are seen as passive and confused. Japan itself, like Hirayama, is going through a struggle, a process of change that tries to balance the traditional against the modern.

Stylistically, Ozu's cinema is remarkable for those willing to give it a chance. All his trademarks are here – zero camera movement, single character shots and evocative editing techniques. His unwillingness to ever let the camera move allows him to frame scenes as if they were photographs or paintings where the characters then suddenly come to life. His use of colour, here for the first time, is accomplished to say the least. Combine that with some wonderful sets and scenery and at times you could be forgiven for thinking you're watching an old MGM musical. Most remarkable of all, though, are Ozu's trademark tatami-level shots. Using a special camera dolly to simulate the three foot height of the average person kneeling or sitting on a tatami pad, Ozu creates a way of seeing the world that is specifically Japanese, specifically Ozu.

The style is so unique and effective that it's difficult to imagine films being directed any other way. Buy the box sets, ration yourself to one film a year and you're in for a rare treat.