Viewed at Venice 2017 in the a Restored Classic section.
"The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice", 1952.
Ozu's restored masterpiece "Ochazuke no Aji" (The flavor of Green Tea over Rice) was a classic Japanese treasure well worth revisting. An examination of an arranged marriage on the rocks saved when the overbearing upper class wife finally realizes that there is more to the taste of Green tea over rice than it's relative tastelessness. With an all time magnificent performance by Japanese actress Kogure Michiyo.
One of the highlights of the entire festival week was a digitally restored print of Ozu's "Ochazuke no Aji" (1952, his penultimate film just before Tokyo Story) with a magnificent Kogure MIchiyo as an upper class wife hugely dissatisfied with the boring middle class wage slave husband she landed in an arranged marriage. This is somewhat of a change of pace from his sedate Noriko films featuring stoically suffering Setsuko Hara. No Hara Setsuko in this one although there is a secondary character named Setsuko. Awashima Chikage is the chic feisty old girlfriend, Aya, who smokes heavily and is Kogure's gadfly sidekick advising her to stop being such a to her quietly adoring husband, Saburi Shin, a simple guy at heart who loves her thanklessly despite her high handed ways. He ends his meals by pouring green tea over the remains of his rice which Taeko (the wife) views as slovenly and low class. She spends a lot of time hanging out with three girlfriends and badmouthing her husband to them while referring to the uselessness of arranged marriages.
In a parallel subplot Setsuko (Keiko Tsushima) is the niece who, (unlike Hara in the Noriko trilogy) refuses to get sucked into an Omiai arranged marriage and ends up on her own with a very young bushy haired Tsurura Koji long before he became a top Yakuza Eiga star. Also featured in an unusual minor role is Ryu Chishu as the behatted owner of a new fangled (for the time) Pachinko Parlor. We also see part of a baseball game at Korakuen stadium. The four girlfriends are baseball fans. The film starts out with street scenes of Ginza with trolley cars and a long cab ride past the moats of the Imperial Palace in Otemachi giving us a feel for the new Japanese postwar prosperity after the American occupation came to an end.
Kogure's epiphany when Shin has ro leave for a quick business trip to Uruguay but comes home the same night because the plan had engine trouble shortly after takeoff, is something to see. After a marital spat she ran off herself with no explanation for three days and was not there to see Shin off at the airport. The long takes on her face as she rides the train back from Kobe and is thinking things over are a master class of acting in silence with facial expression alone. She was a truly great actress in an unsavory role up to the end when realizing that she loves her husband whom she had been referring to as Bonehead (don-kan) to her girlfriends all along, has a tremendous change of heart, realizes what an unmitigated bitch she has been and expresses her revelation by helping husband make his favorite simple dish, Green tea over rice, in a scene that is so touching it brought tears to my eyes. Earlier in a key scene she had berated him mercilessly for his sloppy way of eating the same dish!
This is typical Ozu with no camera movement but many lingering shots of hallways and alcoves that are themselves artful compositions, but it is slightly atypical in that the characters are more brash and outspoken than usual. A most interesting intro to the film was made by composer Ryuichi Sakamoto in a blue suit and white hair speaking flawless English. Sakamoto is here to promote a documentary film about his own life. He told how he was engaged by Shochiku to redo the music for the film but after listening to it carefully he decided that it was meant to be simple by Ozu and fits the feeling of the film perfectly as is. QWhat an experience to see this film again after more than thirty years! -- and that incredible Kogore --my favorite female role in all of Ozu, and that is really saying something. The wordless epiphany on her face when on the train she realizes the folly of her ways and that she does, after all, love her simple hearted husband is alone worth a hundred movies. Shin's restrained simple hearted husband is also a masterful piece of understated acting. He will shine again later in Tokyo Story. Ochazuke no Aji has one or two rough edges but becomes more and more tasteful upon repeated viewings and Michiyo Kogure's magical performance is the finest in all of Ozu -- (Roll over Setsuko Hara!)
In a parallel subplot Setsuko (Keiko Tsushima) is the niece who, (unlike Hara in the Noriko trilogy) refuses to get sucked into an Omiai arranged marriage and ends up on her own with a very young bushy haired Tsurura Koji long before he became a top Yakuza Eiga star. Also featured in an unusual minor role is Ryu Chishu as the behatted owner of a new fangled (for the time) Pachinko Parlor. We also see part of a baseball game at Korakuen stadium. The four girlfriends are baseball fans. The film starts out with street scenes of Ginza with trolley cars and a long cab ride past the moats of the Imperial Palace in Otemachi giving us a feel for the new Japanese postwar prosperity after the American occupation came to an end.
Kogure's epiphany when Shin has ro leave for a quick business trip to Uruguay but comes home the same night because the plan had engine trouble shortly after takeoff, is something to see. After a marital spat she ran off herself with no explanation for three days and was not there to see Shin off at the airport. The long takes on her face as she rides the train back from Kobe and is thinking things over are a master class of acting in silence with facial expression alone. She was a truly great actress in an unsavory role up to the end when realizing that she loves her husband whom she had been referring to as Bonehead (don-kan) to her girlfriends all along, has a tremendous change of heart, realizes what an unmitigated bitch she has been and expresses her revelation by helping husband make his favorite simple dish, Green tea over rice, in a scene that is so touching it brought tears to my eyes. Earlier in a key scene she had berated him mercilessly for his sloppy way of eating the same dish!
This is typical Ozu with no camera movement but many lingering shots of hallways and alcoves that are themselves artful compositions, but it is slightly atypical in that the characters are more brash and outspoken than usual. A most interesting intro to the film was made by composer Ryuichi Sakamoto in a blue suit and white hair speaking flawless English. Sakamoto is here to promote a documentary film about his own life. He told how he was engaged by Shochiku to redo the music for the film but after listening to it carefully he decided that it was meant to be simple by Ozu and fits the feeling of the film perfectly as is. QWhat an experience to see this film again after more than thirty years! -- and that incredible Kogore --my favorite female role in all of Ozu, and that is really saying something. The wordless epiphany on her face when on the train she realizes the folly of her ways and that she does, after all, love her simple hearted husband is alone worth a hundred movies. Shin's restrained simple hearted husband is also a masterful piece of understated acting. He will shine again later in Tokyo Story. Ochazuke no Aji has one or two rough edges but becomes more and more tasteful upon repeated viewings and Michiyo Kogure's magical performance is the finest in all of Ozu -- (Roll over Setsuko Hara!)