The Worst Kept Secret (Ms. Johnson)

  

A group of women sitting at a table with food Description automatically generated with medium confidence 


Sex is the worst kept secret in Ozu. Children run freely but the married often sleep parallel to each other, not intertwining. In Early Summer, Noriko and Aya are unmarried in a society where their marriage is anticipated, and Noriko is running late. The two women across from them defend the sanctity of marriage, trying to maintain the idea that certain pleasures are reserved for their eternal bonds. Noriko and Aya tease them by saying they too play with tops, threatening the institution of marriage. What is the point of marriage if people have premarital sex, as it were? Sex is traditionally a large part of marriage seen almost as a reward for such devotion and sacrifice – making two into one. In the mural, the exaggerated figure of the woman is puzzling. It echoes their conversation of playing with tops (sex) and the conversation between Aya and Noriko’s boss, clams and a rice roll. It echoes pleasure. It is the backdrop to the inuendo filled conversation about sex between the single and married women. The mural is almost saying that pleasure is not reserved for certain people. It is everywhere – food, friends, and lovers. The presence of physical touch and the implied physical intertwining is new to us in Ozu. But in the end, the married sleep parallel to each other and the kids continue to run.  

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