O Que Foi Que a Senhora Esqueceu?

Ozu was a great director, but there is always a tendency to look at his stuff and declare it is unique, as if he sprang out of the earth on the movie set. For decades the Japanese film industry insisted he was a uniquely Japanese talent and we were limited to seeing the works from the 1950s, like TOKYO STORY. Finally about 20 years ago, silent films he directed started showing up in the US -- I saw about a dozen in Lincoln Center at the time. Others have trickled in since, revealing him as a director interested in what was going on elsewhere, with a habit of putting Hollywood posters on his sets' walls -- in this one, there's a verbal reference to Fredric March -- and a habit of lifting stories and ideas from Leo MacCarey; some one I saw at a screening of this movie today told me that MacCarey's MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW was the source for TOKYO STORY. My reaction: maybe.

That is why I was on the lookout and why I realized that the source for this one was probably Laurel & Hardy's SONS OF THE DESERT, with the uncle in the place of Mr. Laurel, the niece who talks him into a night on the town when his wife thinks he is playing a healthy game of golf in the rain, as Mr. Hardy. She also later urges him into standing up to Mrs. Bossypants.

Ozu does not offer us a straight comedy. This closest he comes to mimicking his sources is when the Uncle is supposed to be dressing down the niece. Ozu's work, typically, remains more sympathetic and warm than the straight comedy work on William Seiter's feature. Nonetheless, his admiration for his American contemporaries stands out.

Yasujiro Ozu's 1937 "Nani wa shokujo wa wasureta" (What Did the Lady Forget) is probably his closest approach to screwball comedy. Set in (probably) the most affluent milieu of any of Ozu's film, this involves a bossy wife (Sumiko Kurushima, Japan's first female star in one of her last roles) and her doctor-professor husband and niece, who rebel against (or at least try to wriggle around) her authority. This film was the last time Ozu's pre-war ensemble would appear together (except for the one-time post-war reunion of most of them in "Tenament Gentleman") and the acting overall is first-rate. This film probably does less to explore the fundamentals of the human condition of any Ozu film -- but it is thoroughly enjoyable nonetheless. (Note: Ozu re-used some of the elements of this plot in his post-war "Flavor of Green Tea over Rice").

One of Ozu's most delightful comedies involves the minor household upheaval caused by a freewheeling Japanese debutante's visit to her henpecked professor uncle and his fussy wife. This film is blessed with a surfeit of small, droll gestures that amply demonstrate both the whimsicality and the sharpness of Ozu's observations of human behavior: the clucking communion of housewives, clever games played by singing schoolboys and the subtle, playful banter of relatives who know each others' foibles all too well. The schoolgirl character is of particular interest as a prototypical "liberated woman" who gets her uncle to take her to a geisha house and isn't afraid of letting her leg show under her skirt (here I wonder how much of this was influenced by the '30s Hollywood screwball comedies Ozu loved, or if it was truly indicative of emerging behavioral trends among Japanese women). Things come to a head though as the girl and her uncle conspire for a night away from her aunt, only to be confronted for their deception, leading to an unsettling moment when the aunt gets slapped. I'm not entirely satisfied with how Ozu's characters later shrug off this instance of domestic abuse as just another quirky behavior that can be turned on its ear. Nonetheless the film stands as a provocative exploration of male-female relationships amidst the shifting mores of modern society.

Good news: from a technical perspective, it's aged well. It's not clearly from the 30s the way many movies of that era immediately feel. The mood is pleasant and it's nice and short. Bad news: it's too gentle and mild to be truly funny, and there's not enough conflict for it to be a true drama. It was difficult to get into on an emotional level, as a result. That may just be me though. Overall: not terrible. Some stuff to admire, but some stuff that makes it feel a little flat and so-so.

A small film about an outsider discovering the unspoken rules of a long-standing marriage, What Did the Lady Forget? Is a little thing with quiet emotions that don't dig very deep but provide some nice pathos by the end. It's something like a ditty on Ozu's part, nothing too challenging but something that feels like he could pull off in his sleep. It's not his most memorable film, but at 71 minutes long, it's one of his shortest and fills that time well.

Komiya (Tatsuo Saito) is a professor of medicine in Tokyo. His wife, Tokiko (Sumiko Kurishima), is a nagging woman who never bore him a child and almost gleefully henpecks him every second she can get. Komiya, though, never seems that bothered by this. When their little existence is interrupted by a visit from his niece, Setsuko (Michiko Kuwano), a modern girl who smokes and generally just gets on Tokiko's nerves. There are some other small subplots in the opening act that feel designed to just eat up time and never pay off, like Okada (Shuji Sano), one of Komiya's students, offering tutoring lessons but having the worst time with some basic math word problems. It's a weird thing to notice at the end of a film, that a solid chunk of the opening had very little reason for being there, especially when the film is so short. But, anyway.

Tokiko insists that Komiya go away for the weekend to golf. Komiya doesn't feel like going away to golf, so he hangs out in a bar, runs into Okada, and convinces his student to take his clubs and mail a postcard from the course resort to Komiya proving his presence.

The dramatic aspect hinges on weather, though. Komiya writes in his postcard that the weather is great. It ends up that most of Japan is drenched in rain the whole weekend. So, what's Komiya to do about this postcard? It's made all the worse by Setsuko finding Komiya and getting him to take her to a geisha house, an activity that Tokiko would surely never agree to.

So, there's something like a race (only like one, this is a mature, sound Ozu film we're talking about, no one rushes) to get to the postcard, but it can't be got to in time, and we have a dramatic showdown with Setsuko in the middle of it.

So, what's the point of this? As with most Ozu films, it takes a while to clear up, but it certainly does. It's this look at a marriage that seems unhappy from the outside with a henpecked husband and an overbearing wife, all without children, but Komiya, having come to terms with his existence, knows how to navigate the little dramas of his married life. Setsuko wants to upend that, making Komiya more obviously powerful in the relationship with his wife, but Komiya knows that it can't work like that with Tokiko.

It's acceptance that things will be the same, and that going through Komiya, the quiet, good-natured main character, it ends up working. If he can retreat to his corner of the house with a smile, knowing that things will work out, he'll find his happiness. It's an outlook that accepts things as they are with quiet reserve, a very Zen outlook on things.

And it's nice. It's not deeply moving like The Only Son. The stakes are lower, and watching a henpecked husband smile at his state is not as emotionally effecting as the only son of a woman understanding how to properly show his gratitude. However, I think the emotional catharsis is actually achieved through Setsuko learning that she doesn't know everything about a relationship she's only just stepped into. It's humbling for her to think that she knows how everything should go and insisting on changing everything only to realize that she doesn't know anything.

I think that points to how Ozu can create these multi-layered stories so easily. It's not his best example, but it's a solid one.