The Taste of Saury is the last work of Japanese film master Yasujiro Ozu. The film's themes, structure, aesthetics, and plot all highlight a kind of poetry, a narrative poem written by Ozu to himself and the world, and successfully write this charm on film film.
Ozu Yasujiro's film plot has always been uncomplicated, "The Taste of Saury" and "Tokyo Story" and other works focus on the theme of family, and the main plot is also similar to "Late Spring" and "Mai Qiu" to tell the story of a married daughter, saying that the parents are short, the feelings contained in it are intriguing, aging, loneliness and other emotions are spread throughout the movie, and the various tastes of life in the flow of time are vividly sprinkled.
As director Hou Xiaoxian once said: "Ozu puts the trivial things around us in front of our eyes like a trick, so that after the sadness, we can see the subtle knowledge, lead the impermanence, and go on the road in confusion." ”
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >01 Poetry Eye: Aging is everyone's fate that has nowhere to escape</h1>
"Spring blooms under a clear sky, cherry blossoms are brilliant, and at this moment, I think of the smell of saury, cherry blossoms are ragged and gloomy, and sake is like yellow, bitter into the intestines." 」 - "The Diary of Yasujiro Ozu"
Ozu's old mother, who had been dependent on him for his life, died tragically, and Ozu also died of illness a year after the release of the film, and this posthumous work is Ozu's farewell to the audience, just as he said in his diary that the world's wine is getting more and more bitter and has come to an end. The whole movie does not have a shot of saury, as a loyal autumn fish, which means that late autumn is coming to winter, and also symbolizes that human life has entered the countdown, and the whole film is filled with the sentimentality of aging in the twilight years.
The film still continues Ozu's creative philosophy: "weakening dramatic conflicts and strengthening the emotions of the characters", the main story line is extremely simple, that is, the story of a widower marrying a daughter. The protagonist Hirayama gathers with a group of old classmates and invites the middle school Chinese language teacher to participate. Hirayama sends the drunken teacher home, only to find that the teacher's originally beautiful daughter has become a mediocre and vulgar middle-aged woman who has been consumed by life. Hirayama thought that his 24-year-old daughter was still in a boudoir, and if the marriage was delayed, he would live in self-blame like a teacher in the future. At first glance, this is a light-hearted and humorous marriage story, Hirayama's hesitation in the dilemma of "marrying" and "staying", full of the helpless feeling of life's twilight, and the growth and departure of the child means that the father will face aging and death alone.
Donald. Ritchie said: "In Ozu's film works, the plot can be clearly foreseen, and he deconstructs the story by appealing to our emotions. "Marrying a daughter is the core of the story, but there are not many direct performances, and even who Daozi married to the audience is not known." Most of the film's shots focus on a few old people, who only have nostalgia left in their lives, and the marriage of their children under their knees has become the mainstream of the topic in the party, and the old people have long since lost the passion of pointing out the country. Hirayama, who had been the captain of the ship, met his former subordinates, and in addition to being polite and polite to each other, he did not have any nostalgia for the glory of the past.
In order to enhance the thematic performance, the film contrasts three kinds of aging for the audience - Hirayama's aging in plain loneliness, his classmates digging wells in indulgence, and teachers are poor and destitute aging. Although Hirayama is somewhat envious, he cannot accept the fact of remarriage, not only for the original wife, but also a constraint of traditional ethics, the young body is far away from him, but also under the shackles of morality to redeem his surging desires, he is a symbol of traditional moral concepts. The teachers of the past are obviously representatives of the fallen after the war, the victims of the change of social order and rules, and the changes in the world are lamentable.
Compared with "Tokyo Story", which depicts the disintegration of the family, the family harmony in "The Taste of Saury", the daughter married to a good family, it seems that Hirayama has not experienced any misfortune, but still can not alleviate the loneliness brought about by aging. After Michiko got married, Hirayama went to the tavern to drink in a grand formal dress, and the hostess asked him, "Where did you come back today?" Is it a funeral? Hirayama thought for a moment and nodded, "Well, that's the same thing you can say." "A wedding and an inner funeral, the sad smell of saury, has overflowed the screen, moving the audience.
Hirayama ends up drunk in a tavern, with bleak old songs looping, his time finally passing, his world being replaced after all—Ozu's nostalgia for the old days, and the introspection and self-mourning of the last moments of his life.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >02 Poetry: The loneliness that permeates the aesthetics of mourning</h1>
"Material lament" is an aesthetic taste derived from Japan, in a narrow sense, "material grief" is to touch the scene and reveal true feelings, but it is not a direct and exaggerated expression, but a kind of implicit presentation. In short, it is: the aftertaste. Ozu Yasujiro, who has filmed many "XX Stories" and "XX Tastes", has the best interpretation and presentation of the culture of material grief, and he uses the film language with deep ideological power to truly exert the "aesthetics of material sorrow" to the extreme, giving the audience a unique aesthetic experience.
Wine is used as a vehicle to describe loneliness. Wine is full of metaphors and symbols in the context of oriental culture, and the scenes of drinking in the film are one after another, and one by one, they are more somber than one. "How can we relieve our worries? Only Du Kang", raising a toast is to dispel sorrow, loneliness, and the bitterness of life are temporarily alleviated and relieved after drunkenness. The film begins with drinking and ends with drunkenness, and the part that directly expresses loneliness is also related to alcohol. For example, the teacher's drunken sigh: "I am lonely and sad, in the end, I am still a person." Another example is the night of her daughter's marriage, the drunken Hirayama stands in the cold kitchen, her body shakes slightly back and forth, and her mouth murmurs "lonely", which makes people look sad.
Clever use of cool tones. Although it is an old color film, the tone of the cold color picture in "The Taste of Saury" is impressive. Cool colors often give people a feeling of loneliness, sadness, and loneliness. Especially for The Japanese, cyan is a stable, cool color. The furniture and clothes in the room are all cool colors, and the wine utensils used by Yamahei and his friends when drinking are also turquoise and blue, which affect the audience's mood and play a great role in creating the atmosphere.
Use the language of the lens to express "Yu Xuan". In the use of lens language, Ozu has added the beauty of "Yu Xuan", whether it is composition, depth of field or actor performance, it is full of dignity, loneliness, and depth. The film consciously chooses the blocked space such as the aisle of the small hotel and the corridor of the home as the main perspective, and the sense of loneliness and barrier created symbolizes the restraint and repression of the Japanese people, and is an important visual style and aesthetic feature that Ozu has always had. At the end of the film, after the family sends the Daozi married, the camera still stays in the bedroom. Close-ups of chairs in front of the dresser and shots of the opposite building through the window convey the desolation of the home after the daughter is married.
As Ozu said, "I think the aftertaste is the most important thing about the so-called movies. "The use of omissions and blank spaces to let their own audiences feel and express the loneliness of life from subtle points cannot but be attributed to Japan's special material mourning culture."
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" >03 Poetry: A life that is always waiting is as bitter as a seasonal saury</h1>
"The sunset reflects the snow like firewood, warming the wine in the lighted floor." - "The Diary of Yasujiro Ozu"
Yasujiro Ozu's film is not only empty and poetic, like this poem he wrote, the realism in the film is reflected in the ordinary place of life, which is a higher realm.
At the beginning of the movie, there is a 8-minute long baseball game scene, which seems to have nothing to do with the story, but at the end, we will find that this is Ozu's foreshadowing. The batsman is looking for the best chance to hit the ball in the arena and is knocked out by the three strikes in constant hesitation, which means the waiting and choice of life, always thinking of waiting for a better time to "swing the stick", but when it is time to really make up his mind, it is too late. Concerned about her father's needs, Miura, miura, she loses her favorite Miura while waiting, and eventually marries with regrets. Hirayama adapted to his daughter's life at home, although he realized that his daughter was going to leave sooner or later, but still waited in the status quo, had a good feeling for the bar owner, and did not take any action for a long time, and comforted himself that in fact, the boss lady and the deceased wife were not very similar, and both father and daughter missed the opportunity to "swing the stick". On the contrary, digging a well and insisting on marrying his wife, who is 20 years younger, into the family regardless of the eyes of outsiders proves from another angle that there are some seemingly difficult things in life, and when we really do it, we will find that it is not so.
Hirayama and Michiko are eager to change but afraid to pay the price, just like many people in real life, they dare not seize the opportunity of life, preferring to miss it rather than change. But the ball thrown by life may only be once in a lifetime. In the face of choice, the longer you wait and avoid, the greater the price you pay. This also corresponds to the title of the film again, saury is a seasonal fish, if you do not eat it in time, the fish will be bitter and difficult to bite.
However, Ozu did not make too much sad rendering of regrets in life, and at the end of the story, he showed a positive side of the Oriental philosophy of life - "peace with the encounter, each with a destiny". Life will not be deviated from the track because of the changes in human feelings, and people's hearts will not be deviated from balance by the twists and turns of life. Pingshan, who was once lonely after marrying his daughter, still faces reality humbly and peacefully. After the eldest son's family, who were in conflict over the purchase of clubs, made concessions and compromises with each other, everything was calm again. Although Daozi, whose feelings were frustrated, although he had the regret of love and the reluctance to his family, he finally embarked on the road of marriage with peace of mind. Even if they encounter setbacks, the characters in the film still calmly face life after undergoing some adjustments, so that the emotions of the whole movie are sad and not sad.
Ozu wrote a "nothing" word for his tombstone, and the beauty of emptiness in Eastern philosophy is his ultimate spiritual pursuit, and the so-called emptiness is silence, that is, peace with encounters. Ozu's outlook on life, like his films, is to watch the passage of life and the flow of fate, the bumps of life and the waves of life will be smoothed out by time, serenely remembered or plainly forgotten.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > written at the end</h1>
Many people ask where is the charm of Ozu Yasujiro's movie?
Japanese director Kenji Mizoguchi has a very precise answer: "I depict extraordinary things in a realistic way, while Ozu depicts ordinary things in a realistic way, which is even more difficult." ”
Ozu uses the lens to analyze daily life, showing the plain beauty of life in a poetic narrative. There is no fierce dramatic conflict, character contradictions, and no "exploding" actor performances, everything is restrained and natural, in the trivial description of life, the various aspects of life have been a poetic expression, even if nearly 60 years have passed, it is still a long aftertaste.
Thanks for reading.