The following notes on The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice were written by Josh Martin, PhD student in the Department of Communication Arts at UW-Madison. A restored 4K DCP of The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice will screen in our "Thank You, David Bordwell" series on Saturday, October 19 at 7 p.m. at 4070 Vilas Hall, 821 University Ave. After the feature, the Cinematheque will present David Bordwell's video essay on The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice, originally produced for the Criterion Collection.

By Josh Martin

In an early scene in Yasujirō Ozu’s The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice (1952), a group of women enjoy a day of pleasure and feminine community at the spa, far away from their families and domestic responsibilities. During this soirée – a respite that required some of the women to deceive their husbands – Aya (Chikage Awashima) begins feeding the carp that swim in the pool outside their room. Chuckling, she beckons her friend Taeko Satake (Michiyo Kogure), the central character in Ozu’s comedy, to join her. Pointing to one of the carp – a “big sluggish one,” to be specific – Aya makes the cheeky suggestion that this lumbering fish shares a certain resemblance to Taeko’s husband, the emotionally distant and reserved Mokichi (Shin Saburi). Far from offended by this notion, Taeko begins mocking the fish, labeling it “Mr. Bonehead” and shouting insults aimed at her absent husband. Taeko’s taunts, however, are not merely in jest. Moments later, responding to a friend’s mention of her own husband’s overseas business trip, she expresses an illicit desire: “Maybe mine will go far away someday… Doesn’t matter [where]. Just out of my sight.”

Such resentments bubble up throughout Ozu’s film, producing romantic discontent that the film strives to resolve. Far from a striking pivot in material, the rituals and arrangements of marriage were of great interest to Ozu throughout his storied career, during which he routinely crafted domestic melodramas and family fables for the Japanese studio Shochiku alongside co-writer Kōgo Noda. But where his more famous films, such as Late Spring (1949) or An Autumn Afternoon (1962), approach new courtships in conjunction with ruminations on aging and generational divide, The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice shapes contrasts in relatively youthful couples, charting the personality quirks and general malaise that emerge in these often less-than-harmonious unions.

As such, the film is perhaps most compellingly configured as a variation on the comedy of remarriage, a type of generic narrative conceptualized by philosopher Stanley Cavell. Focusing specifically on a certain tradition of Hollywood romantic comedies of the 1930s and 40s, Cavell contends that the “drive” of the comedy of remarriage “is not to get the central pair together, but to get them back together, together again.” Though Taeko and Mokichi are never explicitly separated, the film shares a resemblance with the type of comedy that Cavell discusses. Ozu charts the steady dissolution and fragmentation of their relationship, emphasizing the frigidity, mundanity, and lack of intimacy that defines this bond. Yet the escalation of these contentious fractures, sending our characters in opposing directions, only serve to shape a path toward reunion and mutual understanding, to bring our couple closer together than ever before.

In addition to the strengthening of Taeko and Mokichi’s marriage, the film observes the progression of another relationship, following the fiercely independent Setsuko (Keiko Tsushima) and young salaryman Noboru (Koji Tsuruta), a friend of Mokichi. Setsuko is told early in the film that marriage is “terrible,” and she takes this advice to heart, repeatedly resisting arrangements of convenience rather than love. As the film develops, Setsuko and Noboru form an organic bond, growing closer and sparking the promise of a happier, healthier marriage for the younger generation.

These matters of genre and tone, as suggested by our gesture to Cavell’s comedy of remarriage, likewise inform David Bordwell’s reading of the film. Bordwell explores these questions in tandem with his trademark engagement with visual style in Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema, his expansive volume that places each of Ozu’s films under the microscope for careful scrutiny. Here, he describes Flavor as a satirical comedy of sorts, concerned with matters of class and their role in shaping the relationship dynamics of Taeko and Mokichi. For Bordwell, this works alongside a more “loosely constructed” narrative form, “with often little more than appointments hooking scenes together.” Indeed, Ozu prioritizes moments in which his characters are engaged in leisure activities, ranging from trips to pachinko arcades and spas to viewings of baseball games and theatrical performances. This more relaxed structure, even as it remains rich with social and romantic tension, provides opportunities for the characters to spend time with one another, exploring their relationships and desires. 

Beyond these matters of structure and content, Bordwell shifts considerable attention to Flavor’s notable stylistic moves. Despite the film’s affinities with Ozu’s broader oeuvre in thematic content, these formal maneuvers are especially distinct. Of particular interest for Bordwell is Ozu’s emphasis on the movement of the camera, a technique not typically associated with the director known for his static, carefully composed frames. Bordwell observes “short, frequent track-ins or track-outs in relation to intermediate settings,” such as the tea table in the Satake residence, asserting that “Ozu would never again employ such flagrant camera movements.” Ozu offered many stylistic experiments throughout his decades-long career, playing with color, editing, and staging, but it is his consistent and fluid navigation of space that distinguishes Flavor within his vast body of work. 

Despite Flavor’s melodramatic presentation of romantic regeneration, the film ends with another conflict, this one of a more humorous variety. As they walk through the streets as a happy couple, the modest-yet-dopey Noboru briefly turns “boastful,” alienating Setsuko in the process. An upset Setsuko runs away; Noboru begins to chase after her, only to be pushed away. As they run down the road in a scene worthy of a slapstick comedy, Ozu’s camera tracks in once more, fading out on a new couple in a temporary crisis. This playful conclusion suggests an eternal quality to the nature of marital struggle, a sense that these misunderstandings and disagreements will continue to repeat and recur, long after the credits roll on Ozu’s charming portrait.