Author: Bryan Loomis
Equinox Flower is a movie that is not timeless. That isn’t a fault, necessarily - it was made for a certain time and place. Still, Wataru’s actions throughout the movie seem so obviously wrong and extreme in the cultural situation we’re now situated in, that they have become the thematic equivalent of a strawman argument. There isn’t much in Equinox Flower that offers insight into the current complications with gender, parenting, and class.
Wataru starts off the movie with a wedding speech where he says he envies the bride and groom because he’s had a passionless arranged marriage with his wife Kiyoko. Kiyoko is sitting right there, apparently blessed with the patience and restraint of a saint throughout the movie. She’s played by Kinuyo Tanaka, one of the bright spots of the movie, as she communicates so much of her feelings with her eyes but mostly stays silent about her husband’s many flaws. It’s a typical Ozu cast with many of his recurring stars, and they all do good work here.
Ozu’s style is fully formed here - there are some really spectacular pillow shots, including one of a fascinatingly neon building. The way that characters are positioned during the dialogue sequences is also communicating a lot with their body language - characters who are uncomfortable with the subject matter being discussed will often have their head turned towards the camera but be facing sideways.
Wataru proceeds to spend the movie being stubborn and refusing to consent to his daughter’s marriage. There is some talk of her daughter’s paramour being of lower class, but mostly Wataru seems to be against it just because he wants to control it. He encounters a series of similar situations with girls of marriageable age that should change his mind, but don’t. It’s less a question of if he’ll eventually come around, than a question of whether his daughter, her friends, and his wife can simply outfox him to make the marriage happen. Even one key late moment that seems like a change of heart is more motivated by what his friends will think of him than actually wanting what’s best for his daughter. He is dragged along kicking and screaming into his arc for the movie.
I have no doubt that there were men who acted like this in 1950s Japan, and there could also be some cultural context I didn’t pick up that would make his actions more understandable. The movie is clearly criticizing him, to its credit. But watching it now, he seems like such an easy target. Many of Ozu’s movies are culturally situated like this one. But the timeless ones get through the first layer of critiquing their cultural situation, as well as a second layer of critiquing the human condition in a way that still resonates. This one only gets one layer deep.
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