An Autumn Afternoon [Sanma no aji] **** (1962, Chishû Ryû, Shima Iwashita, Keiji Sada) – Classic Movie Review 9672

Yasujirô Ozu’s elegant and elegiac final film An Autumn Afternoon (1962) serves as a fine epitaph for one of the world’s great directors.

In the autumn of his life, Yasujirô Ozu directed the elegant and elegiac film An Autumn Afternoon [Sanma no aji] (1962), which serves as a fine epitaph for one of the world’s great directors. The simple story focuses on a widower, Shuhei Hirayama (Chishû Ryû), who discovers that he is on his own when his 24-year-old daughter Michiko (Shima Iwashita) marries.

Ozu’s beloved mother died while filming was under way and his own sense of loneliness works its way into the gentle sorrow of this, his final production.

Tribute must also be given to Kôgo Noda, Ozu’s regular co-scriptwriter, and to Chishû Ryû’s exceptionally fine performance.

It is written by Kôgo Noda and Yasujirô Ozu.

Tokyo-born Ozu, who was unmarried and lived with his mother all his life, died of throat cancer in 1963, two years after her death. He died on his birthday, 12 December, exactly 60 years after he was born.

Ozu’s most famous film is his masterpiece Tokyo Story (1953), but he is also remembered for Late Spring (1949), Early Summer (1951), The Flavour of Green Tea Over Rice (1952), Floating Weeds (1959), Good Morning (1959] and An Autumn Afternoon (1962).

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9672

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Yasujirô Ozu (1903–1963).