The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice - Trains and Cars and Planes
By Doron B. Cohen (Kyoto, Japan)

There is no hiding of the embarrassing truth: Japanese film-makers are simply in love with trains. You'll be hard pressed to find a gendaigeki (contemporary) Japanese film which does not include a train scene, and one even gets the impression that they would have loved to incorporate such scenes into the jidaigeki (historical, or samurai films) if they only could. Ozu is no exception. Train-station scenes, train-riding scenes, trains seen from a distance, trains approaching or departing - you name it, he's got it, in almost every film. True, this is not a uniquely Japanese phenomenon, except for the degree of commitment. In many parts of the world trains gained a certain poetic quality as harbingers of change in human life, and are depicted this way in art and literature. In Ozu's films too trains often signify a change in the life or in the consciousness of the protagonists; in Tokyo Story Noriko's ride back to Tokyo signifies the turning of a new leaf in her life (and it is the only train ride actually seen, although many others take place in the story); in Equinox Flower the father's train ride in the last scene reflects a change of heart concerning his daughter's marriage. Such is the case in The Flavor Of Green Tea Over Rice as well.

But not only trains: this film may be handed the locomotion first prize among all Ozu's films. It opens with a car ride through the more scenic parts of Tokyo, followed by a train ride out of town to the resort in Suzenji, and then, uniquely among Ozu's films, an airplane is taking off, and finally there is the long and elaborate sequence of a train ride between Tokyo and Osaka, filmed from the rear observation car (and analyzed in great detail by David Bordwell). For the wife in the main story-line the train signifies her means of escape from a loveless marriage, but this last-mentioned ride also shows her reflecting on her life, and the result is a change of heart and a new-found willingness to give her marriage another chance.

The film's main story-line concerns a childless upper class couple, who seem to have very little in common. The husband, Mokichi, has simple tastes and a hands-on attitude to life; the wife, Taeko, is snobbish and willful, and probably resents the fact that she was matched with this man. The taming of the shrew takes place in a very subtle way, almost without the husband's intervention. It is mostly an internal process, aided perhaps by the remarks of her young niece Setsuko and her friend Aya, causing Taeko to be ashamed of the way she treats her husband, and making her realize that the fault is mainly hers.

The sub-plot in the film concerns the younger generation - Setsuko and Mokichi's protégé, "Non-chan". They seem different than the older folks whom they sometimes despise, but are they really so different? Setsuko demonstrates willfulness of a no lesser degree than her aunt's, and the last scene indicates that if these two will end up together, it's not a rose garden they'll be stepping into. "Non-chan", who seems to be ready to join the rat-race in spite of his fine words about being young and free, is very awkward in handling the girl he's attracted to. Eventually, every generation turns out to be more or less the same as the earlier one, as Ozu often seems to tell us. Basic human nature is oblivious to the passing of time.

Sandwiched between two great masterpieces - Early Summer the year before it and Tokyo Story the year following it - The Flavor Of Green Tea Over Rice is relatively light-weight, although it contains most of the well-known Ozu qualities, in both form and contents (including one of his most amusing scenes, showing the upper-class couple disorientated in their own kitchen). Perhaps this light-weight feeling is caused by the great amount of light-weight entertainment shown in it: a baseball game, a bicycle race, and the new craze of pachinko that swept Japan at the time and became one of its most typical and ubiquitous institutions. The only traditional Japanese entertainment in the film is a Kabuki play, which, exactly like in the previous film, is heard but not seen, with the camera going through the audience and focusing on some of the characters who are sitting in a box (in this case, the hapless suitor, given the slip by Setsuko). Also, between two films about relatively lower-middle-class families, here we are once again with the upper-middle-class and above, as in What Did The Lady Forget?, from which some scenes were lifted into this film, and The Brothers And Sisters Of The Toda Family, in which Saburi Shin portrayed the young spirited brother, reappearing here once again as a ten-years older version of himself, and will reappear again in later films as a father, having advanced also to the level of a senior executive.

Speaking of actors, in this film Ozu's main actor Ryū Chishū plays a relatively small part, as a pachinko parlor owner who turns out to be a soldier who served under Mokichi in Singapore. He reminisces fondly about that period - probably reflecting some of Ozu's own experiences - and even bursts into a sentimental song. Mokichi is unphased; for him the war is nothing to get sentimental about, although he can't put it completely out of his mind. As often with Ozu, this motif will be picked up again later, in Ozu's very last film, An Autumn Afternoon. This time Ryū Chishū plays the erstwhile commander, and the man who served under him (in the navy, in this case), a mechanic, is the one waxing lyrical about the good old times in the war. Ozu was never shy about using old material time and again, each time giving it some new twist. This familiarity is one of the qualities that make Ozu's films so dear to the admirers of his work.

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