I’ve been totally busy with my studies. It’s that finals time of year. But it’s almost over.
Anyway, I decided to talk about a movie I had watched a couple weeks back. For extra credit in my Japanese class, we had to watch a Japanese movie. Just about everyone had told our sensei that their choice was Seven Samurai. Originally, I was going to pick that one, but with everyone else deciding to do so as well, I decided to go a different route.
Unsure of what to pick with my choice out the window now, I asked the instructor if he had any recommendations. He told me to look into Yasujiro’s old movies. He listed off some titles to me, but only two were able to stick into my head. Something about the seasons.
I looked into it and found that the two movies I had vaguely remembered were Yasujiro’s Late Spring and Early Summer, both of which were old, old, old movies. I’m talking black and white. No, not the silent piano-music films. But you get the idea.
Outside of the first and last ten minutes of The Wizard of Oz, many people nowadays haven’t seen a black and white film. And I’m pretty sure at the mention of one, their mind categorizes it as “dull” or “boring.”
Not true, my friends.
I found out that the two movies I had remembered were both from the same trilogy, with Late Spring being the first. So, I figured that it would be the right movie for me.
After finally managing to get a hold of the movie, I watched it. It was great.
In movies today, they put too much attention into special effects. Sadly, it makes for a lot of cool-looking, but bad movies. The same goes for video games. IMO, a video game with bad graphics is one that is blocky. If it’s not blocky, it’s good. Looking more realistic doesn’t make the graphics any better to me.
Anyway, moving on, Late Spring is a movie about Noriko, a Japanese woman in her late twenties and living with her widowed father. This takes place not long after the end of WWII. They were happy the way they were, until people start suggesting that it was time for Noriko to get married. The movie is this struggle Noriko faces as her family and friends want her to get married, but she doesn’t want to leave her father all alone.
When you watch a good black and white movie, you forget it’s black and white.Your mind fills in the things for you. And way back then, people had to rely on the actual content of the movie rather than what special tricks they could do.
Without getting into spoilers really, what makes this movie great is two things. The smaller one is how the movie is very casual, allowing you to really see what the Japanese life was like after the war ended. The mix of western and traditional ideas is totally interesting. But what makes this movie awesome most of all is the conveyed emotion.
You see characters trying to hide their emotions. You see them cry or hold in their sadness. Instead of being told how someone feels, you get to see it. Feel it. And this breaks through the barriers of language, for reading and empathizing with feelings transcends. In this movie, it is so entirely strong. Words can’t explain this good enough. It is just awesome.
If you’re interested in Japan, the Japanese way of life, or just plain good movies, I suggest you check out Yasujiro’s Late Spring. You won’t be sorry.
