Late Spring: The Bikes

Two bikes and two traces in the sand. Noriko and Hattori have ridden the bikes and just left them to go further on the shore. And they, the bikes and the traces, know what Noriko and Hattori do not.

Or perhaps Noriko and Hattori know it too, only they lack the courage to acknowledge. It came too late, Hattori is already engaged.

Ozu, the director of Banshun (Late Spring) knew how to make bikes and traces in the sand play in his movies, like humans. Tian Zhuang-Zhuang would have also this huge talent to make active players from objects (Springtime in a Small Town), only Tian had learned it from Ozu.

(video by Cinema Sounds)

I saw this scene long before watching the whole movie. The scene with Setsuko Hara (playing Noriko) and Jun Usami (in Hattori) riding the bicycles, their eyes full of indescribable enthusiasm.

I was watching a movie of Hou Hsiao-Hsien (Hao Nan Hao Nu - Good Men, Good Women): there is a scene taking place in a small modern apartment. A TV monitor, a movie played on TV. Noriko and Hattori riding the bicycles, their eyes full of indescribable enthusiasm.

It was my first encounter with Ozu. I wanted badly to see the whole movie. I did not know the title. I only knew that it was a scene from a movie of Ozu. Hou, the great Taiwanese artist, was bringing a touching tribute to the great master of all times. Later, Hou would make a whole movie dedicated to the style of Ozu: Kôhî jikô (Café Lumière).

One year passed. I watched Late Spring, and the scene was there: Noriko and Hattori riding the bicycles, their eyes full of indescribable enthusiasm.

I watched Late Spring again, a couple of days ago. And I noticed the bikes and the traces in the sand. Telling about love with such restraint! What a great scene!

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Another Japanese movie made in the same year, 1949: Aoi sanmyaku (Green Mountains), by Imai Tadashi. There is a scene with youngsters riding the bikes, Setsuko Hara among them! What a joy!

(video by az8601)

I found the video by pure chance, just browsing the YouTube. The title was with hieroglyphs, it took a bit to find the title on IMDB. I just browsed for movies made in 1949, with Setsuko Hara :)

(Yasujiro Ozu and Setsuko Hara)