The greatest movie ever made..!

the audience applauded

Purely Joyful Movie!

Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

Viewed at 2016 Berlin Film Festival in restored classics section.Bakushu" a mid-to-later career landmark, was one of a series of Ozu films with seasonal titles -- Early Spring, Late Spring, Early Autumn, etc. which, like most of Ozu's post-war films, deal with issues ranging from communication problems between generations to the rising role of women in post-war Japan. In this one, Hara Setsuko, Ozu's fetish lead actress, is Noriko (her usual name in Ozu pictures) who, while extremely attractive is very choosy and is getting a little old for marriage at age 28. A match is set up with a well-heeled older man -- a good prospect -- but Noriko, who has a mind of her own, will end up running off to the northern sticks (Akita Province) with a childhood friend, a widower with a child and an ex-buddy of her brother who was killed in action. The family strongly opposes this unseemly match up but finally accepts Noriko's firm decision, an early act of Woman's Lib Japanese style. Hara was an actress with a stature at the time equivalent to Katherine Hepburn in Hollywood, and her older brother in this film, Chishu Ryu, would become her father-in-law in Ozu's most famous masterpiece, Tokyo Story, two years later. Ryu might be seen as a low key Spencer Tracy, but a more subtle and tasteful actor. He appeared in 160 films in a remarkable six decade career. I can proudly say that I was once invited by him to a private tea ceremony at his home in Ôfuna near Shochiko studios. Bakushu is essential Ozu and quintessential Hara Setsuko. Setsuko, who embodied the woman every Japanese wishes he could marry, never married herself and abruptly retired from the screen in 1963, the same year that Ozu died. She then went into seclusion à la Greta Garbo, in Kamakura where most of her films with Ozu had been shot, forever shunning public appearances and refusing to grant interviews until the end. The end came this past September when Hara was ninety-five. She is famously quoted as saying that she never really liked acting but only did it to support her large family. Maybe that's why she was so utterly real on screen. She wasn't acting -- she was just t h e r e.

There are several repeating themes and symbols in Ozu's movies, especially the three films in his famous trilogy around the Japanese 50s where 'Early Summer' is the second installment. For example the film starts with a seashore shot, with waves hitting the sand in eternity and ends with the image of an endless field and a mountain in the background. There two vibrant images are prelude and ending to a film which superficially can be called a feminist family drama, an apparently banal story of a nice and independent girl in a traditional family under pressure to get married. And yet there is a meaning in the relation between the day-to-day family life and the universal dimension of nature - an almost sacred dimension I would say. Ozu treats family life with the full attention and respect that a great artist approaches big universal themes. For him the family is the basic building block of the Japanese society, and family relations are the fabric of the society. Day to day life is filmed with piety, as in a religious ceremony.Recurring themes abound in 'Early Summer' and will be easily recognized by those who have seen the first film in the trilogy - 'Late Spring': Ozu's passion for trains. The theater as a component of the spiritual life, and as an institution that enables communication between the characters. No music or just minimalist soundtrack as the minuet track that accompanies the family scenes, enhancing the feelings of joy and ritualism. And of course, we have here again the magnificent Setsuko Hara, with the fragility, dignity and interior light that makes of her the Japanese Ingrid Bergman.By telling an apparently minimalistic family story Ozu tells here again a story about the Japan he was living in, a country trying to come to terms with itself after an horrific war, defeat and occupation. What strikes at the first sight is the normality - the first few tens of minutes of the film could have happened in any of the Western countries of the period and almost nothing reminds the pressure of history around. And yet, this does exist. The elder parents carry with them the memory of a disappeared son. In a restaurant, at the end of a scene where the characters rejoice in jubilation at memories of their young age and past years, and about how the place remained unchanged a rare (at Ozu) move of camera discovers a wall hidden until then with a poster advertising an American airline. The message is low-key but yet distinct and clear - the victors of the war may have imposed their economic and political structures, but the level of pollution of the day-to-day life is relatively low and has little signification relative to the big picture. Eternal Japan survives, tradition, focus on work, and on family life is the key if this survival. From a visual point of view 'Early Summer' is an even more sophisticated and beautiful film than 'Late Spring'. Many of the scenes of the interiors of the Japanese houses are magnificent, with a symmetric framing of the space, and successive walls and sliding doors that define the perspective and allow for concurrent movements or dialogs to happen in parallel giving a feeling of complexity in the good sense of the word, and helping actually explain the intrigue and progress it all around. Acting is superb, with some of the actors returning here from previous films of Ozu, who directs their words, silence, and movements with sympathy and deep understanding. Even if some of the dialogs at the end of the film are too explicit and sounded didactic and melodramatic to my contemporary and 'Western' taste, by the time we have gotten there we are already knowing and trusting the characters too well so that we can forgive them for speaking a few wooden language words.It's a simple and sensible film, and a good introduction for those who start exploring the Ozu universe.

Early Summer (Bakushû) is the middle entry in what has been called director Yasujiro Ozu's Noriko Trilogy (bookended by Late Spring and Tokyo Story). All three films feature women named Noriko (all played by Setsuko Hara), who are without husbands, and embroiled in family dramas. The names of many of the other major characters recur in the trilogy, as well, which gives the films a feeling of almost being alternate world versions of each other- ala the way comic books have 'canonical' superhero tales, and those set in alternate universes. Released in 1951, the 124 minute black and white film was written by Ozu and his co-writer Kôgo Noda, and is every bit as great a film as its two more celebrated companion pieces. The film featured many of Ozu's actors from the two other films, and in many ways is a variation on the narrative of Late Spring, which revolves around the family plotting to marry off the 'old maid' Noriko. Naturally, a suspension of disbelief is needed to believe that a character played by Hara- Japan's mid-Twentieth Century answer to Julia Roberts, aka 'the girl next door,' would have any trouble finding male companionship. And all of the trilogy films are predicated on the changing role of the Japanese family in the postwar world, where the ideas of giri (duty) and ninjo (emotion) come into conflict. The basics of the narrative follow the tri-generational Mamiya family, who all share a suburban Tokyo home. The oldest generation is wary of change, but accepts it. The middle generation takes it or leaves it, and the youngest generation are just self-centered brats. There are the mother and father, Shukichi and Shige (played by Ichirô Sugai and Chieko Higashiyama); their doctor son Koichi (Chishu Ryu), his wife Fumiko (Kuniko Miyake) and their two bratty sons, the older Minoru (Zen Murase)- about eight or nine, and the younger Isamu (Isao Shirosawa)- about four or five; and the parents' daughter, Noriko. Another son, never seen in the film, Shoji, died in World War Two, and the parents still lament and feel his absence. A missing member of the family is another Ozu standby. All of the family members share the expense of the household, and Noriko, who is twenty-eight, feels in no great hurry to marry. Yet, the bulk of the film is not devoted to this pursuit, but rather the exposition of individual character through small scenes that do not relate directly to the plot. Ozu often eschewed plot driven tales' heavyhandedness in favor of an anecdotal style that allowed things to emerge as a tale more organically, or naturally, without the contrivances that often occur in film….Ozu's films rise or fall on their little moments, when people do little things. There are scenes where the grandfather cuts Isamu's toenails, or when he tries to bribe Isamu into saying he loves him. He does it four times, but when grandpa stops bribing him Isamu gets snotty and says he hates the old man. Then the two brothers show their disappointment when Koichi comes home with a package they assume are toy train tracks. When they find out it's bread, call their father a liar, and kick the bread till the package breaks, Koichi spanks Minoru, and scolds him for abusing food- a no-no in a nation where food was still scarce after the war. Then there's a scene when the adults eat cake, and hide it from the boys, lest have to share it with them. These are the prosaic moments which aid in contrasting the greater moments. The very fact that so few other filmmakers include such 'down' dramatic times, which are nevertheless fascinating, goes a long way in explaining the empyreal heights Ozu reaches in his films.Early Summer is an unjustly neglected classic, and a great film, every bit the equal of its two more celebrated cousins in the Noriko Trilogy, which takes its place alongside Ingmar Bergman's Spider Trilogy, Michelangelo Antonioni's L'Alienation Trilogy, and Krzysztof Kieslowski's Three Colors Trilogy as one of the great accomplishments of cinema. In fact, it is probably the best of the trilogies mentioned, for it is the only one where all three films that comprise it are unequivocally great films. While it's great to be in good company, to rise above that company is even better. Ozu does, no matter where or when you watch his films.

This is a lovingly directed and acted movie. It's obvious that someone cared when they made this movie. However, while these quality elements are there, I found the movie to be very dull and SOME of the characters inexplicably annoying. Perhaps I am one of the only people who became irritated by how obnoxious the two little boys were in the movie and how incredibly over-indulgent the family was. When the father FINALLY yelled at one of the brats, the jerks ran away and everyone scolded the father. I DON'T like to be around brats in my own life if I can help it, and watching brats in a movie is very unsatisfying for me. Am I the only one who wanted to see these two kids smacked?! Apart from this visceral reaction, I was amazed how LITTLE I reacted to everyone else in the film. I just found myself bored.This film was followed up two years later with Tokyo Story. While many of the same story elements recur in the second film (a sense of alienation, spoiled kids, parents assessing and re-assessing that things have gone well despite a few setbacks, etc.), the overall story is just more compelling and interesting.