An Alliance of Women:
Equinox Flower by Ozu

July 30, 2007

I am not yet sure what I think about Ozu's color films in comparison with those in black and white. Color brings out another layer of formality in his style. He is always careful with respect to the design of scenes.. but the use of color adds a noticeable layer of composition. At the same time there are flashes of humor in these late color films (I am thinking especially of Equinox Flower and Good Morning) that would seem out of place in other films.. and this constitutes a certain loosening of style.

Whatever the changes brought on by the change to color, Equinox Flower (1958) uncovers another facet of family life (Ozu never runs out of them). In this case we see the changes coming to postwar Japan through highly gendered points of view. Two male characters hold on tightly to their traditional roles as lawmakers within their house. Against them is a tide of female characters who are bent on opening up new space for their own choices.

One scene that comes up often in Ozu films is the work of the dutiful wife in taking up the clothes of the husband as he comes back from work. It is a cultural form that always strikes me as strange.. and puts me in mind of 50s era images of the American wife running to greet her returning husband. In Equinox Flower this scene is extended with the addition of an unmotivated few seconds in which the wife carefully spreads her husband's clothes. The emphasis serves to settle the household as a traditional house.. with husband in charge as he should be. The remainder of the film will slowly chip away at that vision of the husband.

A key scene comes when two daughters of the same age get together and bemoan the pressures they face in making their own life. One proposes that they form an alliance to help each other out in facing these pressures. They seal it with a funny pinky shake. This formal alliance is supplemented by a series of other unspoken alliances between female figures.. mother helps daughter, sister helps sister, and mother helps friend of daughter. There are clearly changes coming in postwar Japan, but the women, without exception in this movie, are willing to engage with the possibilities of this new world.. and to do so within networks.

The daughter, on being confronted by her father and mother with their knowledge of her impending marriage, stakes out the clearest statement of the values of the new world. This is a position that will be modulated as she relies on family and friends.. but it is a fundamental assertion that the film presents as a done deal.

The men are concerned about this new world of their daughters.. and they talk about it when they meet. In this second office scene Chishu Ryu offers one possible reason for the actions of their daughters. Although through the eyes of their daughters and wives we begin to sense that the deepest problem stems from their own unyielding sense of authority.

It is not as simple as to say the men are holding on to the past. This brief golf scene belies that idea. Earlier in Equinox Flower we also find that the father has a good sense of the bars of Tokyo and has a distaste for the idiots running around during the war. He and the other men are moving into the new world.. but they maintain a vision of this new world that allows them to maintain their position of authority. It is as if they think the new world will still revolve around them.

Near the end of the film we another ritualized scene that is common in Ozu films: a reunion of one kind or another. Chishu Ryu stands to deliver a traditional Japanese poem, and as the lines slowly come it is impossible not to connect these values with the situation of men as glimpsed in the film. The theme of the poem is martial.. but there is no hint of real Japanese nationalism. That is gone, as everyone accepts. More lasting is a sense of manhood and authority.. a warrior ethic and obedience. It is an ethic that keeps the men from finding their footing in the new world.

The film ends with a delightful scene in which the father is tricked into going to visit his now married daughter (whose wedding he disapproved). Here he explains the situation to his wife and tries hard to present the decision as his own.. and something he will decide about. This is met by laughter from his wife.. and that is where Ozu has taken us by the end of the film: the authority that seemed so solid at the start of the film are now open to laughter..