I'll Never Call My Husband Mr Thick-head.

Here's a memorable quote from Yasujiro Ozu’s movie: The Flavour of Green Tea Over Rice. “I'll never call my husband Mr. Thick-head." It was Setsuko’s retort to the ladies at the spa when she explains why she doesn’t want to be set up in an arranged marriage.

It starts out with four women, each on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Well, at least two of them were: Takae, the unhappy, lying, spoiled wife and the above mentioned Setsuko. They lie to sneak away to a spa where they sit around smoking and drinking sake. Overindulging! Comparing their husbands to the carp in the pool (Mr Thickhead)! It was Japan, 1952 and the film is a femi-Nazi milestone. It passes the so-called Bechdel Test (“a simple test which names the following three criteria: (1) it has to have at least two women in it, who (2) who talk to each other, about (3) something besides a man.”). So it turns out that Ozu was a “proto-feminist" - who knew? The Noriko trilogy (Late Spring, Early Summer, and Tokyo Story) includes female characters with independence and intelligence we wouldn't expect in '40s and '50s let alone in Japan. Don’t be deceived -in most of his other films the role of the wife is to help her husband change his clothes when he comes home from the office. The husband removes his suit, dumps it on the floor and changes into a kimono more suitable for relaxing at home. The wife predictably and silently picks up each item of clothing.

My curiosity about Ozu was piqued when I read “The Elegance of the Hedgehog.”. The protagonist was crazy about his films and upon my finding out that Ozu was a real person, a real director, I was motivated to see one of his films. I became hooked myself.

It turns out Yasujiro Ozu is a well-known Japanese film director who died in 1963 on his 60th birthday. His films focus on relationships- generational (fathers and daughters, mothers and sons), marriages (arranged and otherwise), children (often rebellious) and taboo (in the west) subjects such as abortion. (See Tokyo Twilight!!!)

One interesting and repetitive aspect of Ozu’s films is the perspective he uses for his shots. What I didn’t realize is that he “moved the camera less and less as his career progressed.” Maybe if I had watched his movies in chronological order I would’ve noticed that. Probably not. What is impossible not to notice is his invention of the ‘tatami shot’, in which the camera is placed at a low height, supposedly where it would be if one were kneeling on a tatami mat. Another feature in every film I have seen is the long hallway with people inevitably crossing the perspective point. I think he used the same hallway in each of his movies. Personally, I like these predictable techniques. I find the long still shots relaxing and perhaps a little boring. So different from the dizzy Ken Burns-esque zooming in and out.

Near the end of the movie (The Flavour of Green Tea Over Rice) Takae’s husband says that every marriage is like “rice flavoured by tea.” I haven’t figured that out yet but I'll think about it.