“Without generalizing too strongly, one of the core tenets of many informed viewers’ conception of the films of Yasujiro Ozu lies in contradiction. The traditional notion of his cinema is that of quietness and contemplation, using simple and repetitive notions and an unobtrusive style in order to explore family relations. The actual experience, meanwhile, can and often is radically different from this: his style of cutting together frontal medium shots at the level of the tatami according to highly metered rhythms would be frenetic under any other director’s hands, and indeed jars the viewer far more than one would expect. And yet this style, and the darkness and specificity of the post-war Japanese milieu, work in tandem with his more widely recognized tendencies; it is an expansive cinema, one that allows for as much lightness and even comedy as it does for tragedy and loss.
“All of these tendencies are readily present in one of Ozu’s greatest films, Late Spring (1949). Along with Tokyo Story, it is one of his most well-known works and exists within the loose Noriko trilogy that stars two of his most acclaimed actors, Chishu Ryu and Setsuko Hara. In a scenario that would be repeated at least a few more times by the director, Ryu plays a middle-aged widower who lives with his deeply devoted daughter, played by Hara; over the course of the film, he decides to arrange a marriage for her in order to ensure that she will not grow old taking care of him for the rest of his life.
“The storyline is simple to summarize, but the film experience is anything but, filled as it is with a dense network of friends and family, a delicate balance between city and small town, and above all as detailed a depiction of the subtleties of conversation and inflection as has been put to screen. Nothing is left to chance or wasted, and the digressions, like the famed bike ride that Hara takes or a seven-minute long Noh theater performance, serve to make this a whole ecosystem that is under threat of becoming upset at any moment. Late Spring, ultimately, is all about the sacrifices necessary in love, but Ozu enacts these overwhelmingly heartbreaking moments with grace and ambivalence, always seeing every second’s nuances with a clarity nearly unmatched before or since.” ~ Kenji Fujishima
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