The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice (1952)

I am a huge fan of tea, especially green tea, so when I stumbled upon Yasujirō Ozu's The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice (Japanese: お茶漬けの味 Ochazuke no aji), I knew I had to watch it (and try green tea over rice as soon as I feel better). 

The film tells the story of Takeo (Michiyo Kogure), a capricious wife from Tokyo high-society who is bored by her dull husband, Mokichi (Shin Saburi), an executive at an engineering company. While she doesn't bother to hide her contempt for his dullness and stupidity, he is unhappy but never argues back. 

At the same time, the film also tells the story of Setsuko (Keiko Tsushima), Takeo's niece, who uses the couple's marital problems as an excuse for not attending arranged marriage interviews as she is terrified that she will end up in an unhappy marriage and become cruel like her aunt. 

With a rather simple and loosely-plotted story, The Flavour of Green Tea Over Rice is a pretty good study of a marriage in trouble (where eventually they both realise they love each other), and shows how, sometimes, habit is the only thing that holds marriages together. It also deals with the issues of whether a young woman should marry or not, and if it should be an arranged marriage or a loved one. 

Easily the most interesting aspect of the film is the characters. Taeko is insensitive, capricious and spoiled --she has a maid that cleans and cook for her and she doesn't even have kids to take care off-- and yet she eventually manages to redeem herself. Mokichi, however, is the most interesting character. While he is very respected in his work environment and he is even the mentor to a young man, at home, he is basically an empty shell who is constantly verbally abused by his wife. In spite of this, Mokichi still is a sensitive and caring man. 

Shochiku

The character of the niece, Setsuko, is also quite interesting. The problem with her is that she is introduced as a major character but turns out to be just a side-character with her own side plot that has no relevance whatsoever on the main plot. Which means the character isn't as developed as it should have. I was really interested in learning more about her and seeing what would happen between her and the young man.