Daily Archives: April 27, 2016

Early Spring (Sôshun)
Directed by Yasujirô Ozu
Written by Kôgo Noda and Yasujirô Ozu
1956/Japan
Shôchiku Eiga
Repeat viewing/Netflix

“Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then.” ― Katharine Hepburn

Ozu gives us an exquisitely told story of quiet desperation and the breakdown of a marriage.

Masako and Shoji Sugiyama made a love match.  They have been married for several years now.  They are childless and we learn during the course of the film there was a child who died early in the marriage.  They have long since stopped spending much time together.  Shoji works as a salary man in a large company and frequently comes home late.  He regularly gets together with a bunch of friends who commute on the same train.  Masako is fed up and can console herself only with visits to her mother and sometimes with a widowed friend.

“Goldfish”, one of the friends from the train, has no problem with Shoji’s marital status and goes after him.  They begin an affair and Shoji starts lying to his wife about where he is spending his evenings.  She senses something is wrong immediately but does nothing until the evidence is unmistakable.

This movie is as much about the disappointing existence of a salary man as it is about infidelity.  There are many quietly poignant scenes conveying Ozu’s frequent theme of the necessity to accept life for what it is.  As usual, it seemed like nothing much was happening until all the threads were resolved and I had tears in my eyes. Recommended.

Clip – opening scene

The Violent Years
Directed by William Morgan
Written by Edward D. Wood Jr.
1956/USA
Headliner Productions
First viewing/Amazon Instant

Paula Parkins: Hi, Mom. Got time to talk a minute? It’s rather important.
Jane Parkins: Good gracious, no! I’m an hour late already! “Charity First” and all that sort of thing, you know. Besides, what can be so important in your young life as to warrant my attention so drastically?

Ed Wood’s writing nicely balances the overall quality of this film.

The story is framed by what turns out to be a petition by grandparents to adopt their daughter’s baby.  The judge castigates the parents for poor parenting and we segue into flashback.  Paula Perkins wants to talk but her mother is too busy with her charities. Father is a newspaper editor who works 24/7.  Lately he has been covering the rampages of a gang that has been robbing gas stations.  Of course Paula is the ring leader.

Paula’s girl gang robs a young couple in lover’s lane and rapes the man.  They have wild pajama parties with boys.  Finally, their fence gets them a job with “foreigners” vandalizing high schools.  It is this last crime that escalates to murder.  Paula narrowly escapes the death penalty because of her youth.  She had been complaining of strange “cramps” which turns out to be the baby to be.  We segue back to the courtroom and the judge delivers a long lecture on juvenile delinquency and its roots in poor parenting and lack of religion.  During this tirade we get clips highlighting scenes from the movie we have just watched.

I thought this had potential to be amusing and I did chuckle and groan a couple of times. It lacks a lot of the weirdness of Wood’s own work, though, and is more boring than a good “bad” picture should be.

Trailer – back when terrorism meant high schoolers knocking over a few desks