DVD/150: SANMA NO AJI (AN AUTUMN AFTERNOON) (Yasujiro Ozu, 1962)

After a career spanning 53 films over 35 years, Yasujiro Uzo died in 1963 from throat cancer.  His final film was released the previous year, SANMA NO AJI.

Ozu again focusses on a middle-class family as Japan embraces modernity.

Widower Hirayama lives with daughter Michiko and younger son Kazuo.  His older son Koichi is married to nagging Akiko who wants all the latest gadgets.

Hirayama is nagged by old friends Kawai and Horie to get Michiko married - although she doesn't want to - and Hirayama reflects on this after meeting the sad daughter of his school professor who is stuck looking after him.

Koichi's friend - who Machiko quietly likes - admits he has a girlfriend, so Kawai suggests a man he knows.

Michiko relents and marries. but after the wedding Hirayama is alone: dressed in his best suit someone asks did he attend a funeral and he replies "Something like that". 

Shelf or charity shop?  A shelf on it's own.  A perfect distillation of Ozu's themes and pure, spare storytelling.  While preparing the script with regular co-writer Kogo Noda, Ozu's beloved mother died which cast a pall over the process and there is a sadness lurking in the corners of the film which comes into it's own at the end when Hirayama returns home to the house he now only shares with his youngest son who obviously will soon leave too. Ozu's film pops with Ozu regular Yuharu Atsuta's Fujicolour cinematography and the score by Ozu's collaborator Kojun Saito.  As always Ozu drew great performances from some favourite actors: Ryuji Kita and Nobuo Nakamura are delightful as Harayama's interfering friends, Kyoko Kishida is eye-catching as a friendly bar owner, while Haruko Sugimura, in her 9th Ozu film, has only one scene but is sensational as the old teacher's sad daughter.  Keiji Sada and Mariko Okada are good as Hirayama's bickering son and daughter-in-law while Shima Iwashita has a rare gravity as Machiko. But above all, Ozu's favourite actor Chishu Ryu is wonderful as Hirayama, beautifully underplayed and heartbreaking in his sozzled loneliness.  Although the film seems like the perfect 'last film', Ozu was working on a new project when he sadly died on his 60th birthday.  He was buried with his mother, the gravestone bears no name just the Japanese character for 'nothingness'.

Arigato Ozu-san, arigato.

DVD/150: KAZE NO NAKA NO MENDORI (A HEN IN THE WIND) (Yasujiro Ozu, 1948)

Made while Japan was under American occupation, this has been dismissed and even Ozu disliked it.  A somber film missing his usual gentle humour and - unusually for him - there are two scenes of violence.

Dressmaker Tokiko struggles to survive in post-war Tokyo; living in a single room with her young son Hiroshi, she longs for her husband Shuichi's return from the army.

Hiroshi is suddenly hospitalized for ten days and faced with the large hospital bill, Tokiko has no other option but to prostitute herself for one night.

Shuichi returns but any happiness ends when Tokiko decides to tell him what happened.  His anger matches her shame and he refuses to forgive her.

Shuichi visits the brothel Tokiko had used and meets Fusako, a young prostitiute. Through her he realises what the post-war conditions are forcing women to choose.

But is there any chance he will forgive Tokiko?

Shelf or charity shop?  This is on the same DVD as a far superior Ozu film so I will keep it on the shelf.  It is not one of my personal favourites but I can appreciate the performances of Shuji Sano as the conflicted Shuichi although Kinuyo Tanaka's Tokiko is a bit one-note in her despair.  There are fine performances from Chieko Murata as Tokiko's disapproving friend Akiko and Chiyoko Fumiya as the young prostitute Fusako.  It is a joy as always to find Ozu-san's favourite actor Chishu Ryu in the supporting role of Shuichi's understanding boss Satake - it was only six years earlier Ryu and Sano had played father and son in Ozu's CHICHI ARIKI (THERE WAS A FATHER).

 

DVD/150: HAHA WO KOWAZUYA (aka A MOTHER SHOULD BE LOVED) (Yasujiro Ozu, 1934)

Ozu made 54 films but 17 are considered lost including his first 7 films.  Two other films barely survive while HAHA WO KOWAZUYA is missing it's first and last reels; it is still watchable but it's fairly standard melodrama.

Ozu returns to the theme of the breakdown of a family but it is fairly thin although well performed by the three lead actors.

Sadao and Kosaku's happy life shatters when their father's sudden death leaves them and their mother Chieko alone.  A few years later, Sadao discovers he is not Chieko's son but the child of his father's first marriage, he is angry at Chieko for not being told but his uncle pursuades him to forgive his mother.

A few years later, the secret flares up again when both brothers accuse Chieko of favouring the other.  Eventually Chieko reveals to Kosaku why his brother dislikes her.  Can the family survive?

Shelf or charity shop?  A keeper as it is paired with the superior LATE AUTUMN.  In later years Ozu-san said the film was only really memorable for him because his own father had died during the filming.  But despite the fairly basic melodramatic plot Ozu still builds an intensity in the scenes of family conflict and the tonal shift between the ever-reducing family homes and the shadowy local bordello with it's shuttered windows, striped awning and western film posters - boy, did I jump when Joan Crawford in RAIN appears suddenly!  Mitsuko Yoshikawa has the thankless role of the long-suffering mother, much given to collapsing to her knees. It appears to be a family trait as the brothers also crumple easily but I liked the surliness of Den Obinata as Sadao.  Ozu's favourite actor Chishu Ryu pops up as Sadao's dissolute student friend while there are nice performances from Yumeko Aizome as an icy prostitute and frequent Ozu performer Choko Iida as the bordello maid.

 

DVD/150: AKIBIYORI (LATE AUTUMN) (Yasujiro Ozu, 1960)

Ozu's classic LATE SPRING's plot was reworked for LATE AUTUMN and here Ozu intermingles humour and drama equally.

At the seventh memorial of Mr Miwa's death, his three friends meet his widow Akiko and 24 year-old daughter Ayako.  The men all courted Akiko when young and still think her attractive.  They decide to meddle in their lives and find Ayako a husband.

Akiko teaches dressmaking and Ayako works in an office with her friend Yuriko and has no wish to get married and leave Akiko alone.  But the plot continues: Mr Mamiya suggests Ayako meet his employee Goto and they start a tentative friendship.

The men decide if Akika remarries then Ayako need not worry. So widower Hirayama is chosen as her suitor but Ayako discovers the plot, misunderstanding that Akiko has agreed to re-marry.

Yuriko decides to sort the mess out but Akiko makes the ultimate decision...

 

 

Shelf or charity shop?  A shelfer.  Ozu-san again provides a memorable insight into the unacknowledged changes that end a family unit. The initial air of a comedy slowly gives way to the sadness of the two women at being manipulated apart.  Setsuko Hara delivers another wonderful Ozu performance as Akiko: eleven years before she had played the daughter not wanting to leave her widowed father in LATE SPRING but now she's the parent, always smiling and sad-eyed and whose final shot remains in the mind; saying volumes without saying a word.  She is well partnered by Yoko Tsukasa as her daughter Ayako, she would go on to appear in Ozu's following film. Keiji Sada delivered another fine performance as the proposed husband Goto, while three Ozu veterens Shin Saburi, Nobuo Nakamura and Ryuji Kita are great as the meddling trio of friends.  Ozu's favourite actor Chishu Ryu appears in a two scene cameo as Akiko's brother-in-law.

 

 

DVD/150: CHICHI ARIKI (There Was A Father) (Yasujiro Ozu, 1942)

Filmed between Ozu's national service duties - in China between 1937-1939 then Singapore in 1943 - and adhering to Japan's 'national policy', CHICHI ARIKI manages to subvert dogma by alluding to the the emotional cost of 'duty done'.

Existing prints are post-war American versions which excised overt WWII references but Ryohei's army medical exams is evidence enough.

Ozu regular Chishu Ryu is memorable as widower Shuhei Horikawa, a teacher raising his son Ryohei alone.  He is a dedicated teacher but is devastated when a pupil drowns on a school trip.  Consumed with guilt, Shuhei quits teaching and moves to Tokyo to find work, leaving unhappy Ryohei to board at school.

Years pass: Shuhei is an office worker and Ryohei is teaching.  Ryohei tells his father he will leave teaching and move to Tokyo to be together again but Shuihei cannot condone Ryohei's dereliction of duty.

But can duty replace happiness...

Shelf or charity shop?  Watching the world from the shelf .  Ozu-san again provides an insight into parents and children, all the more impressive that he had to negotiate the Japanese WWII codes of Self-Sacrifice and Duty. Ozu wrote his first version of CHICHI AKIRI after THE ONLY SON was released and both have a similar theme - separated parents and children attempting to heal feelings of failed hopes - but the nuanced performances of Chishu Ryu (aged only 38 while filming) and Shuji Sano as Ryohei make it particularly memorable.  Ozu and his mother and siblings had been separated from his father during his teens so he knew the feelings involved but whereas Ryohei fulfills Shuhei's sacrifices, Ozu would avoid school to spend his days in cinemas and was later expelled for writing a love letter to a fellow school-boy.  CHICHI AKIRI was voted the 2nd best film in Kinema Junpo magazine's annual poll - number one was Ozu's THE BROTHERS AND SISTERS OF THE TODA FAMILY!