An Autumn Afternoon - Criterion Collection
 | Directed by Yasujiro Ozu Starring: Shima Iwashita, Daisuke Kato, Kyoko Kishida, Shin-Ichiro Mikami, Kuniko Miyake Criterion Collection, 1962, DVD Customer Rating: 11 reviews Recommend |
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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
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 Keogh
Title: An Autumn Afternoon - Criterion Collection
Sales Rank: 10650 in DVD
Actor: Shima Iwashita, Daisuke Kato, Kyoko Kishida, Shin-Ichiro Mikami, Kuniko Miyake
Director: Yasujiro Ozu
Studio: Criterion Collection, 2008-09-30, Theatrical Release: 1962
Format: Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled, Acpect Ratio 1.33:1
Languages: Japanese (Original Language), English (Subtitled)
Audience Rating: Unrated
Region Code: 1
Running Time: 113 minutes
Package Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches, 0.3 pounds
- 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… More reviews
- 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… More reviews
- A really charming little film
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- The Taste of an Autumn Mackerel........
- This was Yasujiro Ozu's final film. Is it phenomenally different than other Ozu works? Is it a film that takes Ozu in a radically different direction? No. It's just the final chapter in one of the most unique filmographies in cinema history. It's like all his other films, in that it's contemplative, beautiful, moving, serene, and simple, yet, it feels new and… More reviews
