Film Review
Yasujirô Ozu had originally intended to follow
The Only Son (1936), his first
sound feature, with an equally grim slice of life involving an old
office employee who loses his mind. His bosses at Shôchiku
decided otherwise and Ozu, ever obedient to the needs of his masters,
turned out what was to be one of his lightest and funniest films, and
also one of his best social satires.
What Did the Lady Forget? may
contain most of Ozu's stylistic touches - his low camera positioning,
use of static shots of inanimate objects to punctuate the narrative,
contemplative pauses, etc. - but it is very western in its choice of
subject matter, and a pretty flagrant homage to one of his great
cinematic idols, the director Ernst Lubitsch.
As anyone familiar with Ozu's later work will know, the director's
sympathies are invariably with Japan's lower middle classes, the class
to which he himself belonged. The upper middle classes (or
bourgeoisie) were a different kettle of sushi, the one stratum of
Japanese society that Ozu had absolutely no qualms about pillorying,
usually to great comic effect.
What
Did the Lady Forget? shows Ozu at his most mischievous,
mercilessly lampooning the habits of a class that, to him, seemed to
personify many of the defects of present-day Japan, including a
self-absorbed narcissism and over-willingness to sacrifice tradition
for modernity. To a western observer, the characters that appear
in
What Did the Lady Forget?
seem to be more American in their behaviour and appearance than
Japanese, so it seems appropriate that Ozu should plant them in what
is, to all intents a purposes, a classic Lubitsch comedy.
The scenario is one that seems to have come straight out of a Hollywood
crowd-pleaser - the controlling battleaxe of a wife who governs her
home with an iron hand and a lethal tongue; the henpecked husband who
wants to rebel but hasn't the nerve to; and the precocious teenager who
is used to getting her own way and ends up provoking marital discord
between husband and wife. In the tradition of classic comedy, one
small misunderstanding leads to another, bigger, misunderstanding, and
before you know it we are slaloming downhill towards the mother of all
comedy punch-lines (and punch-ups). Ozu concludes by proffering
his own recipe for the perfect marriage: each partner should never let
the other doubt that he/she is master in his own home. Uncannily
smart advice from a man who never married.
The three main characters in
What
Did the Lady Forget? may initially strike us as familiar movie
archetypes but each is rendered with astonishing realism, and
surprising affection (Ozu may have laughed at the bourgeoisie but he
never seemed to bear them any real malice). The husband, Komiya
(played by Tatsuo Saitô, the director's actor of choice in this
early stage of his career), first appears to be a weak and indecisive
man. His idea of a rebellion is not to play golf one weekend when
his wife tells him to (whilst letting her think that he is). Not
only is he putty in his wife's hands, he is just as easily controlled
by his niece, an even deadlier proposition. Komiya may have as
much backbone as a filleted jellyfish but he is the character we most
feel for: the two women in the story soon convince us that they
hardened sadists who delight in making life hell for the male sex.
The female protagonists make an interesting contrast. Setsuko,
the troublesome niece, is every inch the Modern Miss, the exact
opposite of her terrifyingly prim Aunt Tokiko. The latter
represents slavish adherence to tradition, the former, mindless pursuit
of all that is modern. The intergenerational conflict becomes a
metaphor for Japan's crisis of identity in the 1930s, which was driven
by a national desire to modernise and follow the West to improve living
standards and life chances. No wonder Tokiko and Setsuko come to
blows - they represent diametrically opposed ideals, or so we
think. When the husband, Komiya, is provoked into taking his
stand, we see a different side to Tokiko, and we realise that her
resistance to change is perhaps just a front. Once marital
harmony has been restored, she is no longer the fire breathing dragon
but the good little wife, sending out signals that intimate (in no
uncertain terms) she is ready to surrender herself to her master...
© James Travers 2013
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next Yasujirô Ozu film:
The Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family (1941)
Film Synopsis
Komiya is a respected professor of medicine at Tokyo University.
His wife, Tokiko, rules the roost in his house. Sparks begins to
fly when the couple's teenage niece from Osaka, Setsuko, pays a
visit. With her modern ways - smoking, drinking and generally
doing just as she pleases - Setsuko soon gets on the wrong side of her
aunt. At his wife's insistence, Komiya departs for his usual
weekend golfing holiday, although he has no enthusiasm for the
excursion. Instead, he stays with a student of his, Okada, and
visits a Ginza bar, where he meets up with his niece.
Setsuko persuades her uncle to accompany her to a Geisha house.
Hopelessly drunk, she returns to her uncle's house to face the wrath of
her disapproving aunt. When she discovers that her husband has
deceived her about how he spent his weekend, Tokiko is furious and
launches into a vitriolic attack. Goaded by his niece, Komiya
responds to his wife's latest outburst by slapping her face. Far
from destroying his marriage, Komiya soon discovers that he has gone up
in his wife's estimation...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.