according to geist, ozu wished to convey the concept of "sabi", which she defines as “an awareness of the ephemeral”: "much of what is ephemeral is also cyclical; thus, "sabi" includes an awareness of the cyclical, which is evinced both formally and thematically in ozu’s films. often, they revolve around passages in the human life cycle, usually the marriage of a child or the death of a parent." she points out scenes that are carefully duplicated in "late spring", evoking this cyclical theme: "noriko and her father’s friend [onodera] sit in a bar and talk about [onodera’s] remarriage, which noriko condemns. in the film’s penultimate sequence, the father and noriko’s friend aya sit in a bar after noriko’s wedding. the scene is shot from exactly the same angles as was the first bar scene, and again the subject is remarriage."