Daily Archives: May 18, 2015

Late Spring (Banshun)
Directed by Yasujirô Ozu
Written by Kôgo Noda and Yasujirô Ozu from a novel by Kazuo Hirotsu
1949/Japan
Shôchiku Eiga
Repeat viewing/Criterion Collection DVD

[box] Shukichi Somiya: Happiness isn’t something you wait around for.  It’s something you create yourself.[/box]

This is my very favorite Ozu film and that is really saying something.  Something about the combination of the music, the stately visuals, and the writing creates a kind of melancholy nostalgia in me for a place and time I have never seen.

Noriko Somiya (Setsuko Hara) is 27 years old and unmarried.  She is just now recovering her health after years of wartime malnutrition and forced labor.  She lives happily with her father Shukichi, a professor, doting on him and caring for his every need.  Her aunt has decided that it is high time for Noriko to marry and has the ideal candidate picked out (he “looks like Gary Cooper”).  The father agrees but Noriko resists.  Privately, she says she can’t imagine how he can take care of himself without her.

So the father resorts to acting as if he has it in mind to remarry himself. This really upsets Noriko, who previously told another widower she thought remarriage “indecent”.  But this push is what she needed and all’s well that ends well.  The father bears his new loneliness with a sad resignation and dignity.

This very slight and seemingly happy story has me in tears throughout its final third every single time. There is a clear sense of the change going on in Japan in the subtext of the film.  Evidence of the occupation appears in the strangest corners of the scenery and Noriko’s best friend is a divorcee and thoroughly modern stenographer.  I guess change, even change for the better, is usually fraught with sadness and a letting go.   Most highly recommended.

Clip – Some fatherly advice

The Small Back Room (“Hour of Glory”)
Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Written by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
1949/UK
The Archers/London Film Productions
First viewing/Netflix rental

Susan: Wouldn’t it be silly to break up something we both like doing, only because you think I don’t like it.
Sammy Rice: Yes, you’ve got it all worked out in the way women always have. They don’t worry about anything except being alive or dead.

The Archers follow up a couple of technicolor extravaganzas with a little black and white film that harkens back to One of Our Aircraft Is Missing.  The result is uneven but enjoyable.

It is London in 1943.  Bomb demolition wizard Sammy Rice (David Farrar) lost his foot in some unspecified accident.  Since then he has been in constant pain that neither pills nor alcohol seem to touch.  Nevertheless, he persists with taking both to excess.  He lives with Susan (Kathleen Byron), a secretary at work, and feels sorry for himself.  She does her best to soothe his woes.

Sammy works in a top-secret research unit in the Ministry of War.  He is presented with the challenge of guessing what kind of German bomb is responsible for killing a number of young people.  The military authorities continue to search for the actual device.  Sammy promises to travel anytime, anywhere if the bomb is found or claims additional victims.

Sammy’s unit is also asked to test a new gun for use by the military.  The army brass thinks very little of the weapon, judging it unsuitable for use by the raw recruits that will have to use it.  Sammy’s boss (Jack Hawkins) is pushing the gun hard at the behest of his superiors. Although Sammy’s figures reveal the gun’s drawbacks, he is unwilling to argue forcefully against it or stand up to his boss.  Susan is disgusted and they quarrel, sending Sammy back to the bottle.  Can he redeem himself and regain his manhood?  With Lionel Banks as a colonel and Robert Morely as a clueless Minister.

This film is a bit of a mess combining as it does a psychological study with wartime political intrigue and suspense.  We get elements as disparate as a dream sequence that seems straight out of The Lost Weekend and a bomb demolition scene as tense as something from a Bond film.  It doesn’t hold together that well but is still enjoyable thanks largely to the performances, including many from new faces who would go on to make a name for themselves in the British cinema.

Clip