Printemps précoce

The cover of the DVD I rented gave away too much of the plot. I'll try to avoid doing this. The characters in "Early Spring" talk explicitly about jobs and families, so I'll take that as a cue to do the same.

"Early Spring" feels rough -- mostly drab scenery, stark conflicts, and direct behavior. The movie begins with a long stretch of static scene-setting, and then abruptly becomes event-rich. I won't detail the plot, but will say that it and the characters and their actions are completely believable. Nothing is exaggerated or simplified to artificially enhance the drama or make a point.

Many of the characters are recent arrivals to the middle class, thanks to jobs on lower rungs of corporate offices. Business and personal lives are realistically interconnected, which is rare in movies. (Exceptions that come to mind are "The Sopranos," "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz," and movies by the Dardenne brothers.) Even when there is a collegial work atmosphere, the jobs can be punishing. The people don't fail to appreciate the benefits, and memories of poverty are fresh enough to keep them from romanticizing the alternatives. Orwell wrote that Dickens pointed to problems of capitalism, but offered no systematic program to fix them, and that the latter may be depth rather than shallowness. You could say the same about Ozu. "Early Spring" ends, not unlike Chekhov's "The Duel" and "Uncle Vanya," with resignation to circumstances, but also rebuilding and a sense of the redemptive value of work.

I consider Yasujiro Ozu one of the worlds most significant and distinctive directors, a man who eschews false dazzle in favor of examining the human condition, human relationships; most of his films are quietly incisive portraits of people coming to conclusions and making decisions which will permanently affect their lives. Ozu imparts subtlety to his characters, his sense of time and place are impeccable, and his respect for his characters unparalleled. All of that said, I think that Early Spring is one of his least effective--one easily sees the point he makes about corporate behavior and marital infidelity, but this one, rather than quietly contemplative, struck me as merely slow. The characters too often lack any redeeming qualities, and yet we are apparently supposed to care about them for more than two hours, difficult when there is so little to work with--Early Spring is certainly not a stinker, by any means, but for me, a lesser Ozu, and if you want to start with something more characteristic, begin with either version of Floating Weeds, or with his masterpiece, Tokyo Story.

"Early Spring" is one of the lesser-known Ozu films, but it is worth watching to complete his view of post-war Japan, and the complexities of returning to daily life. When "Early Spring" was released, Japan was two years into its independence from American occupying forces. Tokyo and other major cities were rebuilding. Lives were getting back to some kind of order -- and with that, the challenges of dealing with a group think society also were present.

The relationships in this movie show the influence traditional Japan still held on modern life. The closeness of the wife and her mother; the courtesy that the husband shows the mother in law, even as he simply drops his clothes to the floor for his wife to pick up; the traditional house with few conveniences. For anyone interested in Japanese cuisine, the preparation of oden (a kind of winter stew) is a textbook lesson, but it also weaves in with the plot.

"Early Spring" lacks the humor and grace of "Early Summer" and it is not as masterful as "Tokyo Story" but it offers an interesting look at the lives of the young salarymen and office girls, at a time when Japan's post-war culture was solidifying. It would be interesting to see a remake, because Japanese life has changed, and yet has remained much the same.

"Early spring" is a film from the latter part of the career of Yasujiro Ozu. Normally the age of the lead character develops in line with the age of Ozu himself. With a lead character in its early 30s "Early spring" is an exception.

The films of Yasujiro Ozu are all about family relations. An extramarital relationship, as in "Early spring", is very rare and for Ozu rather daring (how innocent it may seem to us in todays eyes).

Both exceptions may well have something to do with a rivalry between the two Japanese studios Shochiku (the studio of Ozu) and Daiei, were Shuchiko was losing ground to Daiei.

More unexpected to me was the negative tone about office work in the movie. At the beginning of the movie we see clerks travelling to their office and the emphasis is laid on their massiveness and anonymity. Later in the film some office clerks are talking to each other and confess that their work is rather dull and only the game of mahjong after work is done is giving them some fun. Last but not least at the end of the film some older colleages advise the lead character not to put all his cards on his career. His mentor even says that it is more important to be loyal to your wife than to your employer, because the last mentioned loyalty is bound to be unreciprocal. Al this is a far cry from what I thought to know about work ethic during Japanese reconstruction. As a faithfull chronicler of the Japanese middle class post World War II Ozu probably sensed the changing cultue correctly.

The technique and form of Ozu is, as always, impeccable. The tranquil pace, the intermediate shots without characters and the careful composition of the images in the characteristic low camera angle Ozu style. All this is in no way inferior to "Tokyo story" (1953), his more well known masterpiece from 3 years earlier.

I have seen quite a few of Yasujiro Ozu's films and while I enjoyed this film, it is not among his best--mostly because of its sluggish pacing. If the film had about 20 minutes cut from it, I really think it would have worked better. Now I am not against long films--provided they merit the additional time. This is one of the few Ozu films I had to force myself to finish, as I found it hard to concentrate on what was occurring--a first for one of his films.

The film is set in a Japanese company where there are lots of lower to mid-level drones doing their jobs. The theme, at times, is that no matter how hard you work and devote yourself to your job, you will one day die...and most likely not appreciated or sufficiently recompensed for your hard work. A depressing view, to be sure, as the film was apparently trying to make a point about alienation during the industrial age (a common theme in Ozu films).

In addition to this theme, there is another plot involving one of the workers having an affair with a co-worker. What actually made this pretty interesting and poignant is that the man's marriage was already in trouble, as their son had died several years ago (as a small child) and the couple became distant in the aftermath. Also interesting is the reaction of the man's co-workers when they think they've discovered the affair (though they still aren't sure). The men all seem to condemn them very quickly and say this is disruptive to the company. BUT, they also later sound incredibly envious of the couple! Additionally, instead of confronting both of them, they only invite in the woman---an interesting double standard.

Overall, the film is typical in style to what you'd expect from an Ozu film. The camera remains stationary and slightly lower than the actors and there are no lens movements. Instead, scenes change by cuts, not by a roving camera. Also, the film's subjects are the countless lower-level white collar workers. Atypical is the film's slow pace (slow even for Ozu) as well as the subject matter--adultery is not something he talked about often.

So is it worth seeing? Well, anything by Ozu is worth seeing as far as I am concerned. Just don't expect quite the same magic and poignant moments like you'd find in such classics as FLOATING WEEDS or LATE SPRING.