Autum Afternoon | An Autumn Afternoon - Criterion Collection

Yasujoro Ozu's last film is one of his best. | An Autumn Afternoon - Criterion Collection | Shima Iwashita, Daisuke Kato

DVDs:


	• An Autumn Afternoon - Criterion Collection Shima Iwashita, Daisuke Kato Criterion Collection, 2008 average customer review:based on 13 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

This was not meant to be the last...

But in the end this IS the last work of Yasujiro Ozu's life. I can't say it is a surprise or fresh because he uses the same actors and actresses he loves. And the plot of a dad trying to get his daughter married off and happy is also recycled - if you are reading this you know this. While in other films of this type the father in the end seems to be OK with what he did in this one the father seems to be lonely and sad that he has lost one of his children, even when he still has a son at home. It is the same - with a twist.
Being able to see a movie drama from Japan in color was amazing in itself - the ruins, the play of red and white, the angle of the camera allowing us to almost look up at the characters and down the layered settings, with the foreground and background and everything in between seeming to jump out at you. The reunion of old friends, the TV set, the fridge, the vacuum cleaner, the tiny plots that twist around the main plot, and the baseball game show the change in Japan in the post-war years. But the old traditions and ways of the family still hung on. It makes such a great mixture of new, old and, sometimes, lovely themes that pop out at you. Get it new or used.

for more information click here

Autum Afternoon

Recently made available on DVD. Yasujiro Ozu's final masterpiece. A true classic
film. Ozu is known for his 50mm lens used on all his movies, shot at low angle, and
yet the world is just starting to discover his work. All his movies from after the
pacific war focuses on middle class Japanese family. Superb acting and is considered
to be a true genius of story tellers as well. His stories are simple, and yet very
deep. Take a trip into Yasujiro Ozu's films. He has touched my heart with all his
wonderful movies. Autum Afternoon was his last movie completed in 1962 as he passed
away the following year at his prime age of 60.

for more information click here

Yasujoro Ozu's last film is one of his best.

This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film.

The film's Japanese title is "Sanma no aji", which means "The Taste of Saury", saury being a kind of fish.

The film is about a widowed man whose daughter wishes to get married. He wants her to continue to live with him as a caregiver but he realizes that she should be allowed to do as she wishes.

This was the final movie by accalimed director, Yasujiro Ozu, whose career spanned decades. He was planning another film after this but he died before it could be made.

The DVD has some fine supplements also. There is a theatrical trailer, audio commentary by David Bordwell, who has written a book on Ozu, and scenes from a 1978 French television special on Ozu.

This is one of Ozu's best films and it should be seen by all interested in Japanese cinema.

for more information click here

Read Mr. Uyeshima's review

This is about a good man. A very good man. Read Mr. Uyeshima's review and then make sure you order the Criterion DVD (excellent transfer of color and clarity). Ozu's film is timeless and the story exposes a father in the autumn of a extraordinary life.

Ozu's Valedictory Film Seems a Most Fitting Summation of His Legendary Career

The last work from revered filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu is a surprising delight, at once a summation of the family dramas that dominated his postwar career and a celebration of his quiet artistry. It's a movie that doesn't call attention to itself and even goes as far as lifting entire sequences from his previous films. At the same time, this 1962 drama is not so much a re-telling of the same stories (co-written with longtime collaborator Kôgo Noda) as it is a re-evaluation of the same dramatic themes that inform the director's work since Late Spring, his 1949 classic to which this film bears the strongest resemblance. Ozu aficionados will find all his familiar, idiosyncratic touches here - the elliptical narrative, the observational view of the characters from the outside, the thoughtfully composed shots, and the stationary, slightly above-ground camera angles to replicate the perspective of someone sitting on a tatami mat. Moreover, Ozu liked using the same actors over and over again, so it comes a no surprise that frequent Ozu actor Chishu Ryu stars in the director's valedictory film.

The character-rich plot centers on middle-aged businessman Shuhei Hirayama who lives with his 24-year-old daughter Michiko and younger son Kazuo. In the absence of a mother, Michiko takes care of the wifely responsibilities for her father and brother and hasn't considered marriage in the near term even though Japanese tradition would label her an old maid soon enough. Hirayama's old friend Kawai has an eligible bachelor in mind to connect with Michiko, but her heart belongs to someone else who is unaware of her interest. Hirayama thinks there is no hurry to marry his daughter off until he sees his old middle schoolteacher comically nicknamed "The Gourd" by his old classmates. Hirayama and Kawai take the wizened man home in a drunken state after a night of sake and beer. They see that he now owns a run-down noodle shop and lives with his daughter, an aging spinster who reveals hints of her sad fate. As Hirayama forges ahead with his daughter's prospect, his older son Koichi struggles to live within his modest means with a wife who nags him about his spendthrift ways. He needs to borrow money from his father to buy a new refrigerator but wants to buy a set of used MacGregor golf clubs against his wife's objections. The plot threads eventually come together when Michiko does marry leaving Hirayama to share household responsibilities with Kazuo.

What first catches your eye is Ozu's vivid use of color, especially a bold use of red in both defining and transitional shots. The other aspect is tonal as the director has moved from the barely concealed emotionalism of his early works to a certain ruefulness in his last film. The last few minutes cover the exact same dramatic finale of "Late Spring", but this time, it doesn't seem nearly as tragic, evoking a slightly melancholic resignation. The stoic Ryu plays the role of the widowed father in both films, this time given an intriguing backstory as an officer in the Imperial Navy during World War II. This leads to my favorite scene at a bar where Hirayama runs into a former sailor under his command (played with boisterous relish by Kurosawa favorite Daisuke Kato) and speculate what Japan would be like had they won the war. Played by Kyôko Kishida, the bar hostess will be familiar to art-house connoisseurs for the title role in Hiroshi Teshigahara's classic Woman in the Dunes. Another familiar face is Haruko Sugimura (the selfish older daughter in Tokyo Story) whose cameo as the schoolteacher's spinster daughter is heartbreaking. Eijiro Tonô (Tora! Tora! Tora!) cuts an effectively pitiable figure as her father.

Shima Iwashita plays Michiko with snippy plaintiveness, effective enough but a far cry from the luminous Setsuko Hara in the earlier film (her reassuring presence is missed here). Keiji Sada (who sadly died in a car crash soon after this film was made) and Mariko Okada etch a revealing postwar portrait of a young Japanese couple struggling to make ends meet in their small apartment. Compared to previous Ozu classics released by the Criterion Collection, the extras on this 2008 release are sparse and limited to one disc. First, there is a highly informative commentary track by author David Bordwell (Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema). The second is a fifteen-minute excerpt from a 1978 French TV special, "Yasujiro Ozu and The Taste of Saki" just as France was discovering his work. Critics Michel Ciment and Georges Perec lend their rather pretentious perspectives. Two theatrical trailers round out the disc extras. There is also a 28-page booklet about the film's production included in the slipcase.

for more information click here

Yasujiro Ozu's final film is also his final masterpiece, the gently heartbreaking story of a man's dignified resignation to both life s ever-shifting currents and society's gradual modernization. Though widower Shuhei Hirayama (Ozu's frequent leading man Chishu Ryu) has been living comfortably for years with his grown daughter, a series of events leads him to accept and encourage her marriage and departure. As elegantly composed and achingly tender as any of the Japanese master's films, An Autumn Afternoon (Sanna no aji) is one of cinema s fondest farewells. SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES: New, restored high-definition digital transfer, New audio commentary featuring David Bordwell, author of Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema, Excerpts from Yasujiro Ozu and the Taste of Sake, a 1978 French television program looking back on Ozu's career, featuring film critic Michel Ciment, Theatrical trailer, New and improved English subtitle translation, PLUS: A booklet featuring new essays by film scholars Geoff Andrew and Donald Richie

for more information click here

reviews: page 1, 2, 3

hot