Description: A nuanced examination of a family falling apart, Early Summer tells the story of the Mamiya family and their efforts to marry off their headstrong daughter, Noriko, played by the extraordinary Setsuko Hara. A seemingly simple story, it is among the director's most emotionally complex. The Criterion Collection is proud to present one of Ozu's most enduring classics.
Amazon.com: Like any of Yasujiro Ozu's best-known films, Early Summer is a marvel of cinematic simplicity, revealing layers of depth through multiple viewings. It may seem at first that Ozu's family tale is too simple, but looks are deceiving, and closer study reveals an intensely structured, highly formalized example of Ozu's transcendental realism, focusing on the dilemma of 28-year-old Noriko (played by the immensely popular Setsuko Hara), whose late-breaking decision to marry sends unexpected shock waves through three generations of her close-knit family. While providing a vivid portrait of liberated womanhood in post-war Japan, this lighthearted yet quietly devastating drama also serves as a gentle study of tradition vs. modernity, and a clash between conformity and independence. It's also a triumph of DVD-as-film-school: As he did for Criterion's release of A Story of Floating Weeds, the distinguished scholar Donald Richie provides an eloquent full-length commentary as valuable as the film itself, thoroughly exploring the purpose of Ozu's low-angle style, the influence of Ernst Lubitsch, the importance of Setsuko as a role model for Japanese girls, stylistic comparison to Jane Austen's fiction, and a variety of other relevant topics. "Ozu's Films from Behind the Scenes" gathers three of Ozu's longtime collaborators for affectionate reminiscence, and mini-essays by Ozu expert David Bordwell and long-time Ozu admirer Jim Jarmusch lend further appreciation from critical and personal perspectives. This is Criterion's fifth Ozu release on DVD, and like the others, it's highly recommended. --Jeff Shannon
Ozu's most beautiful film In my opinion, Early Summer is Ozu's most beautiful film. The heroine, Setsuko Hara has never been so radiant in her beauty and goodness. Her unselfishness and personal conviction triumph over intense familial and cultural pressures. In standing up for herself, she awakens within her family a greater understanding and acceptance of the realities of love and life. Her conversation with her sister about her decision on the beach is perhaps my favorite scene in all cinema.
Rarely is a film so real, so sad, yet with an ending of profound peace and acceptance. If you love Ozu, this will be one to come back to over and over.
Early Summer Simple yet poignant, this beautifully photographed story of Japanese family life and the changing role of women in postwar society contrasts the values of elders and the impulses of youth, an abiding theme in Ozu's deeply humanistic oeuvre. Longtime muse Hara is exquisite in the role of Noriko, the put-upon daughter who incautiously agrees to marry a friend of her brother over an unfeeling suitor 12 years her senior. A delicate exploration of tradition and cultural change, "Early Summer" is a masterpiece of compassionate storytelling.
Life cycle of a family I interpret this film as portraying the Buddhist insight of impermanence. All things change and clinging to anything brings inevitable grief. This lesson is played out in the evolution of a family from a cohesive three generation family all living in one household to the scattering of the family as the younger generation moves away to establish their own households, leaving the parents alone. There is a minor repetition of this theme with the portrayal of of an elderly uncle in declining health with failing hearing and mental acuity.
The sanctity of Family
An absolute masterpiece. This is another take on the issue of 'Late Spring'(of which I wrote another review): How family changes along with the times.
It's NOT about the rights of women to decide whom to marry, or anything of that sort. Visually, I prefer 'Late Spring', but 'Early Summer' has a lot more issues and more depth in its narative. It really would take a whole book to tell all that this film points to, if it were at all possible. How can you you describe colors to someone who's born blind? That's why some people will say this is about women's rights. (The same kind of people who'd say that Jesus was a great philosopher -but not God- when, evidently, he was either God incarnate or a mad man).
"And Jesus said: 'For judgement I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be blind'. Then some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these words, and said to Him, 'Are we blind also?' Jesus said to them, 'If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, 'We see'. Therefore your sin remains." (John 9:39-41)
For this reason I give up any hope of contributing to this film's understanding. Nothing better than the film itself. Simply stated: If you don't get to love this story, these characters, you have a spiritual malfunction.
The female protagonist, Setsuko Hara, is just lovable and wonderful. I can't imagine her doing any other role but those she does in Ozu's films. She is that natural. There are 3 generations in this family here; the newest one we are spoiling it. Too much love and no discipline is no good. Watch the symbolic scene where the grandpa gives candy to the little one. See the results. Watch how grandpa reacts. He laughs. Yes, we are bringing our own destruction, day by day, and yet we laugh. Is it our fate, or can we do something about it?
A Match Made by a Dead Man EARLY SUMMER is not Ozu's greatest film, it is merely my personal favorite. The reason is simple: Noriko Mamiya, played by the incandescent Setsuko Hara, is one of the most fascinating, perverse, and peculiar female characters in all of world cinema. Every viewing of EARLY SUMMER peels away new layers of her guilelessness, revealing more and more quiet audacity.
Noriko lives with her brother (Koichi), his wife, her elderly parents, and her brother's bratty young sons. She dresses in simple western styles and works as a typist. Koichi is an imperious man with old-fashioned ideas about the role of women, and he intimidates the whole family. Except Noriko. Not that she is ever defiant towards him, she has simply mastered the art of smiling deferentially and continuing along her own inscrutable path in life.
Her family, friends, neighbors, and professional associates all take note of her age (28!) and begin to pester her about getting married before it is too late: Noriko smiles deferentially at every suggestion, insinuation, or act of coercion. There is even some speculation that she might be a lesbian.
One member of her family is unable to advise Noriko, and that is Shoji, her older brother who has been M. I. A. since the war and is presumed (by any reasonable standard) to be dead. Ozu is a master of evoking what is out of frame, continually reminding us that there is an unseen world that interacts with what he allows us to see. The absent and lovingly remembered Shoji turns out to be a force that points Mamiya to her groom, a man who unites the family in his absolute unsuitability for Noriko. In my favorite scene, Noriko denies to her friend Aya that she is in love with her intended--and then describes her exact feelings for him in words that perfectly define the phenomenon of being in love.
The new subtitles by Donald Ritchie are only at times preferable to the ones on older prints. On the one hand, the bawdiness of some of the dialogue is much more clear in Ritchie's translation, but on the other hand the titles have become far more prosaic. Sadly, the two best lines in the film have had all the poetry sucked out of them in this version. I will give you the original translations, and you can read Ritchie's for yourself. When Koichi finds his two sons abusing a loaf of bread, the translation of his outburst used to read, "Don't kick food!"
Lastly, when the two elderly Mamiyas share a sandwich in a park, they see a toy balloon floating off into the sky. In a perfect distillation of Yasujiro Ozu's ability to draw our attention to what is off screen, the husband's line of dialogue used to be, "Somewhere a child is crying." Maybe Ritchie's is more accurate, but that was one line he should never have touched.
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