An Autumn Afternoon
by Yasujiro Ozu
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VHS Tape Cover Information
Actor: Chishu Ryu, Keiji Sada, Mariko Okada, Shima Iwashita, Teruo YoshidaDirector: Yasujiro Ozu
Cinematographer: Yuuharu Atsuta
Writer: Yasujiro Ozu
Editor: Yoshiyasu Hamamura
Producer: Shizuo Yamanouchi
Writer: Kôgo Noda
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: Japanese (Original Language), Analog
Format: Color, NTSC, Subtitled
Running Time: 112 minutes
Release Date: 1998-11-11
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Publisher: New Yorker Video
Studio: New Yorker Video
VHS Movie Reviews of An Autumn Afternoon
Movie Review: Ozu's Valedictory Film Seems a Most Fitting Summation of His Legendary Career
Summary: 5 Stars
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.
Summary of An Autumn Afternoon
Deceptively breezy, Yasujiro Ozu's final film, made in 1962, is the lovely culmination of the mysterious writer-director's fascination with family, and the social mechanisms by which different generations fulfill obligations to one another and to themselves. The central character, Shuhei Hirayama (Chishu Ryu, Ozu's longtime collaborator), is a 60-ish executive and widower who slowly grows concerned that his 24-year-old daughter, Michiko (Shima Iwashita), has not married because she feels responsible for taking care of him at home. Taciturn, low-key, but affable, Shuhei is a hard man to read. But through his friendships, habits, daily reminders of his past and fear that he might rob his daughter of her youth, Shuhei gradually comes to terms with his responsibility to see Michiko fulfilled and happy. There is also more to it than that: An Autumn Afternoon is also about Shuhei turning a page in his small part in history, the closing chapters of a life that involved military service during World War II and settling into post-war, largely Westernized Japan. These things are all understated, but Ozu gives every character a shape, a recognition that one must play the cards one is dealt without self-deception. With that comes a certain Zen serenity, humor and perhaps melancholy, but in An Autumn Afternoon's spirit of acceptance, a bittersweet life is a good life. Special features on this Criterion release include trailers and excerpts from a French television special about Ozu. --Tom KeoghArt House & International VHS Video
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