Title: 彼岸花 (Higanbana) English Title: Equinox Flower Release Date: 1958 Directed By: Ozu Yasujiro Starring: Saburi Shin, Tanaka Kinuyo, Arima Ineko It’s late September and the moon is full – today is Ohigan. In Western terms, Ohigan refers to the Spring and Fall equinox, when the days start to become, respectively, longer and shorter. Another way to look at Ohigan, might be that a gap is being bridged – that between seasons. In addition, in Buddhist terms this gap refers to a transition and moving across from this world of suffering and ignorance, to one of awakening or enlightenment. The characters in the word Ohigan (彼岸) could literally be interpreted as meaning “the other shore.” …And what a better time to watch Ozu Yasujiro’s Higanbana? In this case, the title Higanbana refers to a bright, crimson flower whose blooming happens to align exactly around the time of Ohigan. A quick trip to my nearest video store and I find the video sitting on the shelf, amidst other Ozu titles, also still sitting in their cases. Higanbana is no different from most other Ozu films, in that it focuses on family relationships, and highlights a brief, transitional period within a household. Most of the setting for the film is filmed in the home, with some additional scenes at an office place, and one of a family trip to Hakone. The camera is at the typical Ozu angle – low to the ground, giving a unique sense of intimacy and also projecting space larger than it might actually be. The daughter, Setsuko, played by Ineko Arima, (also from Tokyo Banshoku) comes into conflict with her father after he refuses to accept that she has found someone she would like to marry on her own. Her father, simply called Hirayama san in the movie and played by Saburi Shin, is mostly upset, however, because he wasn’t consulted about Setsuko’s decision. His character is a bit quick tempered, a bit stubborn, and definitely protective of his daughter. The situation of Setsuko and her father is also representative of generational difference, and a shift in the way marriage was at one time viewed in Japan. The idea of arranged marriages, omiai, and marriages based more on individual choice, is an important distinction here. These differences come out quite clearly in the dialogue, for example when Setsuko cries to her father in frustration, “I’m going to search for my own happiness!” and in reaction to her father’s insistence that Setsuko’s marriage partner should be someone the family is familiar with, she exclaims, “But that’s your way of thinking!” The movie goes beyond pinning down generational shifts so easily, however, as we see the individual depth of each character and the reasons behind their ways of thinking. In other words, this is not such a simple story as modern young woman eventually emerges victorious over old fashioned, stubborn father, but rather one in which most of the characters in the movie reach an understanding. It is with this understanding that the characters, father and daughter especially, bridge a gap, both making symbolic transitions from one side to the other. In this way, the movie appropriately contains the reference to Ohigan. An excellent scene toward the end of the movie, finds Ryu Chishu, in this movie playing a family friend, singing shigin, a poetic form of oral storytelling, set to music. For about 3 minutes of film, the audience is pulled into a wonderful, slow, yet climactic scene which symbolically helps to confirm the transition which the main characters must make – the song lyrically serving as a form of mono no aware, a realization and acceptance of the passing of things. Typical also of Ozu’s movies, many scenes which American audiences might anticipate and feel to be essential to the plot, are only referenced, or sometimes not even shown at all. In the case of Higanbana the entire wedding itself is not shown, rather the movie cuts directly to Setsuko’s father, sometime soon after the ceremony. In explaining why he wouldn’t blatantly project some scenes on the screen, Ozu mentioned that he tried "to portray the cycle of life," and that he "wasn’t interested in action for its own sake.”
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Title: おくりびと (Okuribito) English Title: Departures Release Date: September 13th, 2008 (Japan) Although I had seen and greatly enjoyed this movie when it came out, I decided that it wasn’t necessary to write my essay because the movie had already garnered enough attention. After all, I wanted to focus on Japanese movies which might be lesser known in the U.S. and a movie which had won the 2009 Oscar Award for Best Foreign Language Film I had previously deemed as outside of the scope of my movie reviews. However, I’m now of the impression that far too few of us have yet to see this movie. Thus I hope to give just one more reminder to go out and rent Okuribito. You definitely won’t regret it. The story follows a Daigo Kobayashi and his wife Mika as he quits his job as a cellist and moves back to his recently deceased parent’s house in the country. He takes work with what he assumes to be a travel company only to find out later that it is actually a service for preparing dead bodies for funerals. While at first not thrilled about the new job he has taken, he strangely finds himself unable to quit. Eventually, the job, called a Nokanshi in Japanese, starts to grow on Daigo. Also, the closeness to death, and making a new connection with his hometown, forces him to think about his own life. As he starts to open up to and accept his past, he begins to feel a new sense of completeness as things start to come full circle. The audience as well is, along with Daigo, compelled to think about their own pasts, as well as the memory of and duty to family and loved ones. We are also unable to escape having to reflect on our own mortality, something which might make this movie a struggle to watch for some, but which ultimately strives to pull us back toward something we all too often find ourselves trying to escape from. A very memorable scene is when Mika discovers what Daigo’s new job is – something he had, up to a point, been successfully keeping hidden from her. She is unable to control her feelings of disbelief, her disgust for the job, and her contempt toward Daigo. As Daigo reaches out to touch her, she recoils in fright calling him kegarawashii, a word which one doesn’t often hear in Japanese, and which might be translated as “unclean” or “filthy” in English. Other than being just a fantastic movie, one of the things that really was interesting for me about the movie, was the opportunity to see an example of a Japanese ceremony which many foreigners might never have the opportunity to see in person. While only a prelude to the funeral itself, there is great ceremony that goes into preparing a recently deceased body in Japan, and the whole family gathers around the loved and watches the Nokanshi as they work. |
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