#989 The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice お茶漬の味 (Yasujiro Ozu 小津安二郎, 1952)

#989 The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice お茶漬の味

1952 // Japan // Yasujiro Ozu 小津安二郎

Criterion Collection (LINK) / Letterboxd (LINK)

Rewrote by Kogo Noda and Yasujiro Ozu from a script originally written by Ozu in 1939 before he was drafted for the military service, THE FLAVOR OF GREEN TEA OVER RICE revolves around a childless, middle-aged couple, Mokichi (Shin Saburi) and Taeko (Michiyo Kogure), examines their marital discord, thereby scrutinizing the disparities between bourgeois and provincial classes, the pre-war and post-war generations, and genders in a gently satirical, subliminally comedic ambivalence. In the post-war era, Ozu had refined his stylistic approach in staging actors and framing them against vertical blocking, often showing them enclosed in between sliding doorframe, situating them at the end of the extended corridor.

Herein the post-war recovery was set in parallel, at times in opposite, to the traditional values, for example the arranged marriage rejected by Setsuko (Keiko Tsushima), the niece of the married couple, as well as the reestablished modernity, including the leisure activities, from Pachinko to cycle racing gambit, and the women’s autonomy as embraced by Setsuko and her potential boyfriend Noboru (Koji Tsuruta). The quiet moments, including the static shots of the desolated corridors in the couple’s house, and the instance when the characters were in melancholic contemplation, demonstrates how Ozu was a storyteller before a formalist. Melodrama and satire are merely a tool in Ozu’s storytelling, the vibe of his films are aptly summed up by the last scene of this film in which Mokichi and Taeko reconciled whilst making a late-night meal together, it’s simple yet suffused with equivocal feelings, mundane yet registered with non-verbal meaning. It’s the flavor of green tea over rice, not the most luxurious and thrilling taste, but definitely everlasting.