Any fan ofYasujirō Ozuhas the face ofSetsuko Haraburned into their memory. The legendary Japanese actress collaborated with the director six times, including on an unofficial trilogy in which she essentially played versions the same character, a kind, cheerful, unmarried woman named Noriko. These three films —Late Spring,Early Summer, andTokyo Story— all of whichhave 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, concern one of Ozu’s favorite themes: the conflict between modern sensibilities and traditional Japanese values. Noriko is at the center of this in all three, as her desire for individuality clashes with the expectations of her family.In their individual ways,each entry in the Noriko trilogy says something about the struggle children face when trying to live up to their parents' idea of what their lives should look likewhile making their own decisions about their futures.
What Is the Noriko Trilogy About?
InLate Spring,Noriko is a 27-year-old unmarried woman living with her aging widowed father, Professor Shukichi Somiya (Chishu Ryu). At the urging of his sister, Aunt Masa (Haruko Sugimura), Shukichi tries to convince Noriko to find a husband. She refuses, fearful that he won’t be able to take care of himself without a woman around. Masa misleads her niece into thinking her father plans to get remarried to a young widow, Mrs. Miwa (Kuniko Miyake), and Shukichi plays along. When he smiles at his supposed bride at a Noh performance, Noriko reluctantly agrees to marry a man her aunt has set her up with. She asks her father why things can’t stay the same even if he does remarry, and he insists she start her new life without him. After the wedding, Shukichi sits alone, devastated by the loss of his daughter.
InEarly Summer,Noriko is an unmarried secretary living in Tokyo with her aging parents, Shukichi (Ichiro Sugai) and Shige (Chieko Higashiyama), her older brother, Koichi (Ryu), his wife, Fumiko (Miyake), and their sons, Minoru (Zen Murase) and Isamu (Isao Shirosawa). At 28, Noriko is considered an old maid, and her family wants to push her into marrying an eligible bachelor, the 40-year-old businessman Mr. Manabe (who is never seen). Meanwhile, Noriko’s childhood friend, the widowed doctor Kenkichi Yabe (Hiroshi Nihon’yanagi), has accepted a new position in the rural town of Akita. During a casual conversation with Kenkichi’s mother, Tami (Sugimura), Noriko agrees to marry him, and her family is shocked to learn that she will be moving away with the doctor and his young daughter, rarely to be seen again.
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InTokyo Story,elderly couple Shukichi (Ryu) and Tomi (Higashiyama) live in Onomichi with their youngest daughter, Kyoko (Kyoko Kagawa). They travel to Tokyo to visit two of their adult children, Koichi (So Yamamura) and Shige (Sugimura), who have no time to spend with their parents. Only their widowed daughter-in-law Noriko, whose husband went missing during the Pacific War, makes any effort to entertain them. Koichi and Shige send their parents to a hot spring, but Shukichi and Tomi decide to return home early, stopping off in Osaka to see their youngest son, Keizo (Shiro Osaka). But Tomi gets sick on the train, and dies at home surrounded by her family. Koichi, Shige, and Keizo all leave early, angering Kyoko, but Noriko assures her that all children drift away from their parents. Later, Shukichi tells Noriko that she has acted more like a daughter to him than his own children, and gives her one of Tomi’s watches as a keepsake. He encourages her to remarry, telling her it pains him to see her alone.
The Noriko Trilogy Explores Themes That Have Been Ever-Present in Yasujirō Ozu’s Work
It has often been said that Ozu made the same film every time, and the director did nothing to dissuade that notion. “I just want to make a tray of good tofu,“the director once saidof his approach to filmmaking. “If people want something else, they should go to the restaurants and shops.” It’s easy to groupLate Spring, Early Summer,andTokyo Storytogether, since they don’t just recycle similar plots, but many of the same actors and character names as well. His films, beginning in the silent era, generally looked the same too, with the camera stationary, low to the ground, and using the same focal lens.Yet there are always slight variations to the ways in which Ozu explored these themes, especially in his handling of Noriko’s struggle with her own identity.
InLate Spring, Noriko is afraid of leaving the nest and starting life on her own, sacrificing her independence to take care of her father. He pushes her into marriage, despite her resistance to it, and, secretly, his fear of losing her. The Noriko ofEarly Summeris perfectly content with her life as a single woman, and jokes with her married friends about it. Although her family wants her to find a husband, her choice of a mate is in defiance of their wishes to keep her close by forever. InTokyo Story,Noriko remains a widow not out of faithfulness to her late husband, whom she admits to forgetting about from time to time, but to her in-laws, whom she lovingly refers to as mother and father. In all three cases, her desire to please her family is in opposition to her hopes for independence.
Setsuko Hara Was the Perfect Muse for Yasujirō Ozu
Born in 1920, Hara was often compared to the likes ofGreta Garbo, not just in her screen persona, but in her desire for privacy — she retired from the spotlight after the release of Ozu’sThe End of Summerin 1961,claiming she only actedas a means of taking care of her family.She sadly passed away in 2015, never making another on-camera appearance. “Like Garbo, Hara came to represent an ideal of womanliness, nobility and generosity,” wroteDavid Thomsonin “The New Biographical Dictionary of Film” (viaThe New York Times). In the three movies that make up the Noriko trilogy, Hara represents the ideal Japanese daughter: devoted to her parents, filled with warmth and humility, always smiling. Yet lurking beneath the surface is a deep sadness, a void of self-assurance stemming from a lack of identity outside of her family.
During the time Ozu was making films, his work went largely unseen in the U.S. because it wasthought to be “too Japanese"for Western audiences.Yet what could be more universal than the desire children have to please their families while still charting the course of their own lives?It’s easy to see why Ozu kept returning to that well time and again, considering how relatable it was. And it’s understandable why he so often featured Hara at the center of these delicate tales. After all, who better to convey this struggle than someone who became an actress to support her family only to walk away when it came time to live for herself.
Late Spring, Early Summer,andTokyo Storyare available to watch on Max in the U.S.
Late Spring
Originally released in 1951, this Japanese drama follows Noriko, a 28-year-old woman who lives with her extended family in post-war Japan. As her family pressures her to marry, Noriko grapples with the decision to conform to societal expectations or follow her own path, which may not align with her family’s wishes. The film examines the dynamics of family, marriage, and individual autonomy.
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