Repast

Another film by Mikio Naruse, this time though, not starring his favourite actress Hideko Takemine with whom he had made some of his best, but by Ozu's default lead lady Setsuko Hara, who epitomised the 'ideal woman' in Ozu's masterpieces.

Filmed at the prime of her career, Hara looks every bit as elegant and charming under Ozu, and the character she takes on attractes admiration on her appearance from everybody across the board. However, the look is where the similarities ends. In the world of Ozu, whatever roles she plays, she is that traditional woman; a subordinate on all accounts, whose sole purpose of life is to make everybody around her happy, even at her own expenses. She might have her own thoughts and ideas but she would almost always supress it if it conflicts with those of the others, especially that of her immediate family. Whatever happens, she accepts her fate with a smile and cries of her own pain only when no-one is around.

In Repast however, we encounter a woman who dares to question what she can get out of a life as a housewife. After five years marriage, she finds herself worn out by the domestic drudgery imposed on a housewife, and worse still, her husband does not only never help out at home, but prefers his newspaper than engaging in a conversation with her. While she is making sacrifice to keep the book balanced, her husband takes advance payment to sponsor his selfish niece's fancy daydream when she pays an uninvited visit and overstays her welcome.

Unlike any of the women played by Hara in Ozu's films, Hara's character in Repast decides enough is enough and returns to her native Tokyo to think things through, to seek opportunities and employment, leaving her salaryman husband to look after himself.

The film gets very interesting indeed at this point, not only because it is by then rather clear that her handsome and much better-off cousin is one of her longtime admirers, but more importantly, a woman's voice is heard, raising a very interesting question; where her place should be, that of a self-fulfillment at workplace or tied to the kitchen sink for the rest of her life.

The film however ends with her train journey back home with her husband snoring by her side, accompanied by her voiceover that her happiness is to make her husband happy, because after all, he has been 'bravely' working everyday in order to maintain their home. Given that chance of employment for women seems rather grim, and that her mother's home is in fact not as welcoming as she has anticipated, returning to her husband seems to be the only option for an unemployed married woman. But the ending nevertheless seems too abrupt and too ready to succumb to the convention of the time.

The film was made in 1951, a time when Japan was still struck by extreme poverty after the defeat during the Second World War. What the ending would be if the film was remade?

PS: it has been argued that Naruse and Ozu were rather similar in their approaches at their early careers, but their mature works could not be more different. And indeed, although Ozu has always fixed his camera on the domestic world, Ozu never let it enter the kitchen, and has therefore deprived us any slim chance of learning about the hard labour behind a polished home. In Repast however, Hara is filmed for a number of times as working in the dingy and small kitchen, highlighting her misery as a housewife of a salaryman. The same Hara therefore has a very different experience in Naruse's film from that of the Ozu's.