Ozu Yasujiro: 100th Anniversary Collection 1 - Early Spring DVD Region 3
Ikebe Ryo
| Kishi Keiko (Actor)
| Awashima Chikage
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Customer Review of "Ozu Yasujiro: 100th Anniversary Collection 1 - Early Spring"
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Kevin Kennedy
See all my reviews
February 5, 2008
See all my reviews
February 5, 2008
Unhappy lives of salarymen
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"Early Spring" is a long, fierce wail concerning the grim and empty lives of salarymen. Indeed, of this film, Ozu wrote: "I tried to avoid anything dramatic, and instead piled up scenes where nothing at all happens, so as to let the audience feel the sadness of their existence." "Early Spring" focuses on a 30ish married couple in Tokyo, Sugiyama Masako (Awajima Chikage) and his wife Shoji (Ikebe Ryo). After the death of their infant baby, the couple has grown remote from each other. Shoji complains about her daily routine and fantasizes about what life might be like as a widow. Masako has a grindingly boring office job, then escapes into games of mahjong, parties with old war buddies, and the arms of a willing young woman known as Goldfish (Kishi Keiko). This clearly is a marriage coming apart at the seams. After Goldfish shows up at Masako's home, Shoji decides that she has had enough and moves out. Masako then is transferred to an equally tedious job at the company's manufacturing operations in a small town. He moves there without his wife and with nothing to do in his free time. Is this all that life offers to salarymen and their wives or is their hope for something more? Watch this movie to see Ozu's answer. There are some terrific performances in this film. Particularly good are Awajima Chikage and Kishi Keiko. I was familiar with (and very impressed by) Ms. Kishi's work is such 1970s films as "Le Rendezvous", "Hunter in the Dark", and "Tora-San Loves an Artist". I was stunned to see her looking so young and wanton in this film. This is not a particularly good transfer of this film to DVD. The images are quite dark and sometimes grainy. There also are occasional problems with the English subtitles. Nonetheless, I recommend very highly this unsparing look at the fate of Japanese salarymen. |
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