idea that Noriko undergoes “two movements”… Noriko begins the story as one incapable of making a mature choice about her future, “in need of a man” as Aya says, [what you could call nidicolous], and the perfect candidate for an arranged marriage, as is indicated by the failure of her promising relationship with Hattori (who is “her type”) to meaningfully amount. But after facing this fact about herself, and having granted that she indeed likes the man whom she has been arranged to be with, she is in a better position to make a mature choice about her future. Consequently, it is as an adult at the end that she is told her choice doesn’t matter and that she must follow the will of her family and leave her family’s house.
A farther out notion is that this doesn’t concern humans or human relationships at all but is a parable of spring –Noriko is the spirit of Spring– and the war and American Occupation of Japan have been the spirit of a long, severe winter.
The Vase. Does it resemble a glass of saki? As I watch Aya lifting her saki at the end I find myself reminded of the vase. (Also: the vase, and the darkness of the scene it appears in, contrast sharply with the rocks, sand and brightness, of the scene that directly follows it… How many of these “pillow shots” in Late Spring contrast images of dryness and wetness this way?)
.i`` * ^ / . . . . . ` `~ 