In an occasional series, we are circling back to revisit a few films of the postwar Japanese master Yasujiro Ozu and to sample some we have never seen. Here are his final three:
THE END OF SUMMER (1961) (B+) - Ozu's penultimate film is wistful and bittersweet. Brewery magnate and widower Manbei (Nakamura Ganjirō II) has a sunny disposition but he is concerned about his two daughters, only one of whom is married, and his widowed daughter-in-law, who has not remarried (and whom Manbei is trying to set up with an eligible bachelor).
The daughters show concern for their father, but he has happily reconnected with his old mistress, understandably disliked by the daughters and whom he sees on the sly. (He treats the mistress' daughter, a free spirit, as his own, too.) Youngest daughter Noriko (Yoko Tsukasa), an office drone, pines for a co-worker who is being transferred to Sapporo. The family travels for a memorial service for Manbei's wife, and he miraculously recovers from a heart attack.
Ozu shoots in soft colors and mostly from knee level, his calling card. Characters cope with a hot spell by vigorously deploying hand fans throughout. The first half hour can be challenging in keeping track of who is who and how everyone is related. Ganjiro is effective at adding layers to a character that is a successful businessman, a caring father but also a longtime adulterer. The glimpse into the lifestyles here can be fascinating, and the pace is leisurely but never slow or boring.
AN AUTUMN AFTERNOON (1962) (B+) - Ozu goes out with a feast. This was his last film; he would die on his 60th birthday, December 12, 1962, the day I was born, 60 years ago. Numerous scenes here involve friends and family members eating and drinking, in a repetitive celebration of life.
This revolves around yet another widower, Shuhei Hirayama (Chishu Ryu, above), who has regular reunions with his childhood classmates at a restaurant owned by one of them. After a drunken visit from one of their old teachers, Shuhei is reminded that he may be a burden on his daughter, and so he arranges to get her married off so that she won't turn into a spinster.
Many themes are woven throughout. The death of Shuhei's wife still weighs on his adult children; the family's grief is not fully resolved. There are scenes that mock Japan's military might and the nation's postwar capitulation to American culture. That pop culture lends the backdrop for the burgeoning neon along the streets of Tokyo, which provides a visual zing to the typical formal presentation (you can see echoes in Wong Kar-Wai's elegent "In the Mood for Love").
There is a wistfulness and a playfulness threaded throughout what Ozu could not have expected to have been his final film. Perhaps he knew somehow that his run was coming to an end. Ryu, who appears in all three of Ozu's final films (and just about all of the others), is a kindly, elegiac vehicle to shepherd this last supper.
LATE AUTUMN (1960) (B) - This slow-paced story revisits a lot of common themes, and here those themes seem a little worn and undercooked. This time the focus is on a widow, Akiko (Setsuko Hara, above left), and the beautiful daughter she is apparently holding back, the prim Ayako (Yoko Tsukasa).
Ozu begins with a reunion of three friends of Akiko's late husband, about seven years after her death. With both women present, they speculate about Akiko retaining her looks and still being eligible for a second husband, a prospect that would also free Ayako from caring from her mother, so she, too, can go out and snag a husband. One member of the trio eventually emerges as a suitor for the widow.
However, both women are resistant to the idea of marriage. Ayako is a particularly stubborn modern young woman, and there is delightful interplay between her and another young friend, Yuriko (Mariko Okada), especially their pop-culture banter at the dawn of the '60s.
It is too bad that Ozu draws this out a little too much -- like most of his films it runs a tad over two hours -- because the set-up is intriguing, and the last reel provides a satisfying resolution. The bumbling of the three men could have been tightened up, with a deeper appreciation for the mother and daughter swimming against the current of postwar tradition.
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