Equinox Flower

Hi, Aki,

Tonight we watched autumn equinox by Ozu. The funny thing about this movie is that I’m still not sure whether he meant it as a comedy, social commentary, or drama. Unfortunately, I had a terrible headache when I watched it – this might explain some of my confusion.

The story involves the usual terrain that Ozu moved through in his later movies: conflict between generations, and arranging for a daughter’s marriage and departure. The beginning sets up Papa as a man who understands the drawbacks of arranged marriages as well as the yearning of young love. Unhappily, Papa seems to forget all his well-meaning understanding when it comes to his own daughter and her fate. He is seeking suitable candidates for her hand without consulting her, as was the traditional approach his parents used when he got married. Meanwhile – though he doesn’t know it yet – his daughter has her heart set on a young man, and yet she refuses to be drawn out by Papa when he asks her if she is interested in any young man.

The two butt heads after the girl’s boyfriend shows up unexpectedly in Papa’s office and without warning or the use of the customary intermediary asks for her hand. Papa is nonplussed and says he’ll have to think about it. Once he gets home he angrily confronts his daughter who, instead of sweet talking him, simply declares that she intends to marry the young man whether her father and mother like it or not. This backs Papa into a corner, and he tells the girl she’s not allowed to leave the house and that he definitely opposes the marriage.

Two subplots bring Papa into considering his own situation through other people’s stories. One of his old middle school friends has lost his own daughter in exactly the same way – the girl has defied him, he has forbidden her marriage, and she has abandoned him to take up with her boyfriend (although it’s not clear whether the girl is married or not). There is also the rather silly proprietress of a country Inn whose daughter is determined to select her own husband, and appeals to family friend Papa for support against her mother’s choice of marriage candidates. Of course, in both these situations, Papa is most reasonable and flexible and ends up giving advice that contradicts his behavior in his own family situation.

In the end however Papa is maneuvered and manipulated into not only allowing the marriage of his daughter to go forward, but also attending the ceremony and finally going to visit his daughter and her new husband in Osaka to reassure them that he wishes them only the best.

What struck me in considering this movie was how rich a study Ozu is for all prospective screen writers and filmmakers. For production students, his absolute clarity and attention to composition is amazing. For screenwriters, his approach is to build up by accretion the general understanding and emotional position of his audience. In Hollywood movies, character is announced their plans and proceed to try to implement them. In this movie, the first third or half of the film unspools before we learn about the daughter’s boyfriend. It feels a bit random and meandering compared to Hollywood movies, and the audience has to be more tuned in to nuance and subtlety and remember everyone and everything that is going on in order to fully enjoy and comprehend the story. Each scene is a small fragment which makes us understand something and feel something, and the total effect of all these fragments allows us to feel only one way about the situation by the time the movie ends.

An Ozu movie is like a jigsaw puzzle. In a Hollywood movie, each scene arises from the previous scene and leads into the subsequent film (or it should). Ozu's scenes connect to three or four other scenes, and the mosaic thus built up is only appreciated when you can hold all the scenes in your head – or rather in your heart.

Ozu and his screenwriter would come up with a long list of scenes and fragments of scenes having to do with the basic situation – in this case, they would be three lists – one for each of the two subplots and the main story line. The fragments would be arranged and rearranged into the order that made emotional sense, by which I mean an order that would position us viewers into feeling the way Ozu intends us to feel. This would then involve the calculus of interpolating the three storylines – so that each fragment from the subplot would also affect us in the way we think about and feel about the main story line.

That makes me believe that it would be good practice to reverse the method by which Ozu and his screenwriter constructed the screenplay. List all of the scenes of an Ozu movie and put them on index cards and then tried to re-order them in a way that gives a better effect – or a different effect than the one in the movie.

(15 March 2009)