User reviews

Soshun aka Early Spring (Yasujiro OZU, 1956)

This was made after a more than two-year gap following his preceding film, "Tokyo Story" (during which period he spent a lot of time working on a film that was to be directed by Kinuyo Tanaka -- which had become bogged down by all sorts of business politics). Ozu re-visits the world of the young "salaryman" for the first time since the 30s -- and doesn't particularly like what he finds. Ozu looks at the corrosive impact of the transition to a corporation-centered existence on white collar working men.

Shoji Sugiyama (Ryo IKEBE) and Masako (Ckikage AWASHIMA) have been married around 7 or 8 years, but are childless (their only son having died several years earlier). Shoji has shifted his focus to his career and pretty much disregards his wife (or at least takes her very much for granted). After Shoji becomes involved in dalliance with a co-worker, Chiyo, better known as "Goldfish" (Keiko Kishi), Masako decides she's had enough...

This film is one of Ozu's most earnest. While there are some touches of humor (for instance, Shoji's reunion with his army buddies, after which he is followed home by two of them), the overall tone is serious. Kumeko Urabe provides some earthy practicality as Masako's mother (now a noodle shop vendor -- unclear what she did prior to her husband's death years before) and Chishu Ryu (as Shoji's mentor, in business exile in the boondocks -- but not entirely regretting it) provides quasi-paternal guidance.

This film teaches a message Japan largely ignored, business relationships are not an adequate substitute for family ties. With the recent recognition (in Japan) of the phenomenon of "death by overwork", the message of the film might be considered especially timely.

"Early Spring" is one of the lesser-known Ozu films, but it is worth watching to complete his view of post-war Japan, and the complexities of returning to daily life. When "Early Spring" was released, Japan was two years into its independence from American occupying forces. Tokyo and other major cities were rebuilding. Lives were getting back to some kind of order -- and with that, the challenges of dealing with a group think society also were present.

The relationships in this movie show the influence traditional Japan still held on modern life. The closeness of the wife and her mother; the courtesy that the husband shows the mother in law, even as he simply drops his clothes to the floor for his wife to pick up; the traditional house with few conveniences. For anyone interested in Japanese cuisine, the preparation of oden (a kind of winter stew) is a textbook lesson, but it also weaves in with the plot.

"Early Spring" lacks the humor and grace of "Early Summer" and it is not as masterful as "Tokyo Story" but it offers an interesting look at the lives of the young salarymen and office girls, at a time when Japan's post-war culture was solidifying. It would be interesting to see a remake, because Japanese life has changed, and yet has remained much the same.

I have seen quite a few of Yasujiro Ozu's films and while I enjoyed this film, it is not among his best--mostly because of its sluggish pacing. If the film had about 20 minutes cut from it, I really think it would have worked better. Now I am not against long films--provided they merit the additional time. This is one of the few Ozu films I had to force myself to finish, as I found it hard to concentrate on what was occurring--a first for one of his films.

The film is set in a Japanese company where there are lots of lower to mid-level drones doing their jobs. The theme, at times, is that no matter how hard you work and devote yourself to your job, you will one day die...and most likely not appreciated or sufficiently recompensed for your hard work. A depressing view, to be sure, as the film was apparently trying to make a point about alienation during the industrial age (a common theme in Ozu films).

In addition to this theme, there is another plot involving one of the workers having an affair with a co-worker. What actually made this pretty interesting and poignant is that the man's marriage was already in trouble, as their son had died several years ago (as a small child) and the couple became distant in the aftermath. Also interesting is the reaction of the man's co-workers when they think they've discovered the affair (though they still aren't sure). The men all seem to condemn them very quickly and say this is disruptive to the company. BUT, they also later sound incredibly envious of the couple! Additionally, instead of confronting both of them, they only invite in the woman---an interesting double standard.

Overall, the film is typical in style to what you'd expect from an Ozu film. The camera remains stationary and slightly lower than the actors and there are no lens movements. Instead, scenes change by cuts, not by a roving camera. Also, the film's subjects are the countless lower-level white collar workers. Atypical is the film's slow pace (slow even for Ozu) as well as the subject matter--adultery is not something he talked about often.

So is it worth seeing? Well, anything by Ozu is worth seeing as far as I am concerned. Just don't expect quite the same magic and poignant moments like you'd find in such classics as FLOATING WEEDS or LATE SPRING.

I consider Yasujiro Ozu one of the worlds most significant and distinctive directors, a man who eschews false dazzle in favor of examining the human condition, human relationships; most of his films are quietly incisive portraits of people coming to conclusions and making decisions which will permanently affect their lives. Ozu imparts subtlety to his characters, his sense of time and place are impeccable, and his respect for his characters unparalleled. All of that said, I think that Early Spring is one of his least effective--one easily sees the point he makes about corporate behavior and marital infidelity, but this one, rather than quietly contemplative, struck me as merely slow. The characters too often lack any redeeming qualities, and yet we are apparently supposed to care about them for more than two hours, difficult when there is so little to work with--Early Spring is certainly not a stinker, by any means, but for me, a lesser Ozu, and if you want to start with something more characteristic, begin with either version of Floating Weeds, or with his masterpiece, Tokyo Story.

The cover of the DVD I rented gave away too much of the plot. I'll try to avoid doing this. The characters in "Early Spring" talk explicitly about jobs and families, so I'll take that as a cue to do the same.

"Early Spring" feels rough -- mostly drab scenery, stark conflicts, and direct behavior. The movie begins with a long stretch of static scene-setting, and then abruptly becomes event-rich. I won't detail the plot, but will say that it and the characters and their actions are completely believable. Nothing is exaggerated or simplified to artificially enhance the drama or make a point.

Many of the characters are recent arrivals to the middle class, thanks to jobs on lower rungs of corporate offices. Business and personal lives are realistically interconnected, which is rare in movies. (Exceptions that come to mind are "The Sopranos," "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz," and movies by the Dardenne brothers.) Even when there is a collegial work atmosphere, the jobs can be punishing. The people don't fail to appreciate the benefits, and memories of poverty are fresh enough to keep them from romanticizing the alternatives. Orwell wrote that Dickens pointed to problems of capitalism, but offered no systematic program to fix them, and that the latter may be depth rather than shallowness. You could say the same about Ozu. "Early Spring" ends, not unlike Chekhov's "The Duel" and "Uncle Vanya," with resignation to circumstances, but also rebuilding and a sense of the redemptive value of work.

Early Spring came between Ozu's incredible masterpieces Tokyo Story and Tokyo Twilight. No surprise then, that it kind of falls flat in places. It's by no means a bad film, but it adds a bit too much complexity, making the focus confusing at points. The film starts as a comment on the salary man. The opening scenes are both funny and sad, as we see the empty streets of Japan gradually fill with men and women in white shirts. They all come together at the subway station, and then we see two men in an office building looking down at the madness below. These are the kind of details one must love about Ozu. It is all represented there on the screen, and without many words we know what is going on. As the film continues we see the workers on their breaks and finally arranging a weekend trip. On this trip is where the real story begins. A young married man named Shoji is attracted to a young girl nicknamed "Goldfish". They are unable to hide their attraction, as their colleagues start spreading rumors and noticing the smiles between the two. Eventually they give into their temptation. It's the effects after this betrayal that are the key focus. The young girl is surprised that she develops emotions, while Shoji is instantly ashamed of himself. His guilt soon grows, and he avoids his wife. Because of this his wife begins to suspect he is cheating on her. The film shows how destructive guilt can be. As Shoji tries to keep his mind off the affair, he ends up forgetting the anniversary of his son's death. The film is too long for its material. There simply isn't enough going on in the middle, and too much at the beginning and end. What it does offer is Ozu's look at relationships without the arrangement of a marriage. Instead, this shows the hard work and commitment a marriage takes. A theme that was handled a lot more competently and economically in his next feature.

I don't have much to say about this other than this movie is brilliant. Dialogue is brilliant, acting is brilliant and the way camera is positioned is brilliant. You can feel the tension, the heat, the smell of the town. I guess I really love Ozu movies.

Soshun / Early Spring (1956) : Brief Review -

Ozu's handful take on working class issues is more about adjustments than ethics and encouragement. Soshun is another fine film from Yasujiro Ozu who is master in handling such stories based on small parts life but it definitely lacks the walling and hardness. A young man and his wife struggle within the confines of their passionless relationship while he has an extramarital romance. The film is about three things, one is passionless married life, two is corporate office issues faced by working class post World War and third is unethical Extramarital affair. Usually, we see Ozu handling one story at a time and giving full justice to it but here he gets three stories and that's why couldn't give full justice to any of them. In numerical analysis i would say he gives 70% justice to each story and those remaining 30% is what we didn't expect from him. The bigger problem is, it doesn't have any inspiring and encouraging ending which might have given hope to be better in life, rather it is about getting yourself adjusted with the wrongs. I don't see how a wife can really manage to live with the husband after knowing his affair or could it be really possible even in imagination? The better side of the film is it's non-narrative nature just like other Ozu films. You can't blame him much because he doesn't choose narratives, instead he chooses just a small part from a life and brings it to the silver screen. One can't deny Ozu's master storytelling here and for that he deserves Full Marks. Enough about Ozu, actually Soshun is a much better film because of its actors. I mean watching every actor performing seamless even after weakened storyline is such a great thing, no? The cinematography in Ozu films never disappoints and Soshun is no difference. Yet another triumph for the artist behind the camera. In simple words, it's Very Good and that's the best i can say.

RATING - 7/10*

By - #samthebestest

"Early spring" is a film from the latter part of the career of Yasujiro Ozu. Normally the age of the lead character develops in line with the age of Ozu himself. With a lead character in its early 30s "Early spring" is an exception.

The films of Yasujiro Ozu are all about family relations. An extramarital relationship, as in "Early spring", is very rare and for Ozu rather daring (how innocent it may seem to us in todays eyes).

Both exceptions may well have something to do with a rivalry between the two Japanese studios Shochiku (the studio of Ozu) and Daiei, were Shuchiko was losing ground to Daiei.

More unexpected to me was the negative tone about office work in the movie. At the beginning of the movie we see clerks travelling to their office and the emphasis is laid on their massiveness and anonymity. Later in the film some office clerks are talking to each other and confess that their work is rather dull and only the game of mahjong after work is done is giving them some fun. Last but not least at the end of the film some older colleages advise the lead character not to put all his cards on his career. His mentor even says that it is more important to be loyal to your wife than to your employer, because the last mentioned loyalty is bound to be unreciprocal. Al this is a far cry from what I thought to know about work ethic during Japanese reconstruction. As a faithfull chronicler of the Japanese middle class post World War II Ozu probably sensed the changing cultue correctly.

The technique and form of Ozu is, as always, impeccable. The tranquil pace, the intermediate shots without characters and the careful composition of the images in the characteristic low camera angle Ozu style. All this is in no way inferior to "Tokyo story" (1953), his more well known masterpiece from 3 years earlier.

Had seen a few of Yasujiro Ozu's films some time ago, and was blown away by them, but never got around to seeing his whole filmography. With a lot of time on my hands for obvious reasons, after being on a roll watching a number of foreign films recently it occurred to me by chance not long after a friend raved seeing 'Tokyo Story' that there was much more to see of his films. So decided to do so, and am still kicking myself as to how it took me so long to watch and review the ones not yet seen.

Of which 'Early Spring' was one of them on both counts. It is not one of his most critically acclaimed films, despite being positively reviewed it has never as can be recalled been on "the best of Ozu" lists, but (as cliched as this sounds) even when Ozu was not at his best he was still worth watching. Bad films of his were extremely rare in my view. 'Early Spring' is a long way from being one of his best, it is not on the same level as 'Tokyo Story' and 'An Autumn Afternoon' (am not trying to be unfair here). Yet it still manages to be a very good film indeed.

'Early Spring' is not perfect. Will agree with those that say that the film can be too slow. Ozu's pacing in his films does tend to be deliberate, but even for his deliberate pacing there were times where the pace here in 'Early Spring' was too on the sluggish side.

Not helped by that the story is very slight, Ozu's films don't have complex plots and are not known for them but there were times here where the plotting veers on non-existent.

This is going to sound to others that to me 'Early Spring' was a bad films. Have actually said already very clearly that it isn't. Ozu's direction is typically meticulous and always assured and sensitive, this was the sort of film that he excelled in and that can be seen here. Though other films do it even better. It looks good too, the settings are not elaborate as such and any outdoor scenes are used sparingly but the clever and beautifully framed photography is striking. As is the gentle in mood score that goes for the emotional core without over-emphasising.

It is beautifully written as a film, lucid, sincere and always rings true. The story is slight and could have done with a quieter touch and a tighter pace, but it has a humanity and compelling realism to it and it was very interesting to see Ozu tackling a theme he didn't usually have in his films. There are characters in other Ozu films that are easier to get behind and more richly developed, but they are still interesting and don't ring false. They are compellingly acted too, especially from Ozu regular Chishu Ryu bringing his usual dignity.

Overall, very good. 8/10

Following his 1953's "Tokyo Story" Ozu continued in "Early Spring" his observation and examination of the family theme by looking at the issues that generates from the switch between personal and professional obligations. With his cinematography from the first to the last frame Ozu focuses on small details such as the daily routines to display the tensions the main character endure between his home and the office. And ends it as always with an optimistic conclusion. A fine film by Yasujiro.

Another character-focused drama from Yasujiro Ozu, and while I don't think it's among his very best, I still found plenty to like here.

It's mainly about a married couple who've been through some tough times, and I believe are in their mid to late 30s. The husband begins feeling interested in a young woman, but it doesn't play out the way you might expect; it feels a whole lot more real, and without melodrama.

I feel like the film as a whole tries to capture those final few confusing years before middle age definitively starts. It's not something I can relate to wholeheartedly, but give me 10 years and a rewatch of this and we'll see.

145 minutes felt a little long, but it's still well-made and has rewarding moments for patient viewers. There are always a couple of sections (sometimes more) in an Ozu film that take me off guard emotionally, often by a character expressing some kind of surprisingly profound personal insight. It's those key scenes or even just seconds of film that always stick in mind, and make Ozu a continually engaging filmmaker to watch, even if his films sometimes feel a little slow and overlong (not always 100% in a bad way!)

Seeing this film is more like looking at a photo album than watching a movie. Characters seem to walk in and out of set scenes, speaking while in the set, and then it is on to the next photo. Some concession need be made for a black and white film from 1956 and for the style of Yasujiro Ozo, yet this approach to film making seems to destroy the continuity of the film. For example, one jumps from tones of Japanese industrial society (340,000 office workers in one city) to hiking on a highway to sitting and drinking tea. This may in fact be the thread of industrial postWWII Japan, but it seems not the fabric. The result appears to be a lack of a coherent Japanese identity, for costumes and jobs appear not to be enough to transcend the disruptive nature of the editing. Ozu is the master of the set scene, but the editing appears disjointed rather than cohesive. There also seems to be a dependence on American stage production rather than Japanese movie making. One cannot help be see a relation between this film and the stage plays of Tennessee Williams and of Arthur Miller. I seem to get the feeling I am watching a Japanese docu-melodrama in Italian neo-realism. I half expect to see Burt Lancaster leap into one of the scenes. The Left Elbow Index considers seven variables of film--acting, film continuity, character development, dialogue, production sets, and plot. The acting is average since there seems to be little more to do than sit and talk. The film continuity is also rated as average, despite the what seems to be disjointed action and time. The character development and plot need help. There is little verbo-robots can become, and the plot of infidelity in marriage seems always to follow the same course, with minor personal variations. The production sets are rated average since in black and white most sets are simply degrees of gray. Average is the rating given to the dialogue. It is functional but appears to lack insight. The best line is "Babies come quicker than raises." The artistry rates average, again color would help, as it does in Ozu's THE END OF SUMMER. The overall LEI average is 3.83, raised to 4 in tribute to Ozu's reputation, which equates to a 6 on the IMDb scale. I recommend the film, it is worth watching as an integral part of film history, keeping in mind that the best of Japanese films have not yet arrived in 1956.

Okay, so we expect a certain clarity from cinema about the conundrums of life. In Ozu this appears in a combination of things. The spatiotemporal eye is empty, grounded, it's a dispassionate awareness that sets the room for life to play out. It's more than realism, it's a way of creating realization about the point things are more sensibly viewed from.

Narrative then is a matter of having something to view. Here several things blend. Officework for the salaryman in the audience. War reminiscence. A marriage grown distant to illustrate the tension in the home. So each of these threads poses an aspect of life, the idea is that life also extends a bit in this or that direction. This is the opportunity to create that realization that in the first place informs the passage of time.

It's not that things were better in the old days, this is never the point in his films. Viewers who miss this are stuck with a sentimental uncle. It's that things are not different, that slightly changed the same conundrums repeat: salarymen are not more distinguished than the old craftsmen, husbands will stray as before and so on. In the same swoop it creates both melancholy and a certain kind of relief.

Ozu is quaint then in this sense of being content by the way life envelops and figures itself out, letting the drama peter out as a way of saying it was never worth being caught in. This was most elegantly seen in Early Summer in the girl's spontaneous decision one night to marry. Here the wife in the end makes her choice to follow her husband in his transfer, not because anything has been solved, but because it is now seen to not matter.

But he removes the self from the camera only to put it back in the characters. This is a great and difficult balance that to my mind he only accomplished once or twice, how little to show and say. There's no precise answer, just different brushstrokes to try. Push with a little more force and it becomes a moral smudge, push less and maybe there won't be an intelligible trace.

Ozu traces faintly the turmoil but too hard the worldly lesson, it seems every minor character is encountered to offer advice at some point. It defeats the whole point of a world that is not yet figured.