Charles Camp After having seen and loving Tokyo Story, a film which is widely considered to be not only master Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu's best film, but also one of the greatest films ever made, I was very eager to see more. Many consider Late Spring another of his absolute best works, and I can happily say that it most definitely met my very high expectations. As with Tokyo Story, this a deep, masterfully-executed and penetrating film examining family life in Japan and the societal and generational pressures which shape it.As with Tokyo Story, we enter this tale of father, Shukichi Somiya, and daughter, Noriko Somiya, in the middle. 27-year-old Noriko lives together with her father and they appear to be very close. Naturally, questions begin to arise in the mind of the viewer: where is Noriko's mother and why hasn't she ever married? Ozu does a fantastic job of coaxing these questions out in the film's early stages and gives us hints at what has transpired, but never spoon- feeds us by explicitly explaining the backstory. We learn that Noriko had been seriously ill at one point during a period of war and hardship, but has since recovered. Her mother is a mystery for much of the film, but it slowly becomes clear that she has died and that Shukichi is a widower. With this context, the film examines the father-daughter relationship between Noriko and Shukichi and the pressures on them both to have Noriko finally marry and "leave the nest", so to speak.The strength of this film (and Tokyo Story alike) is how subtly and effectively it tells this story. The screenplay and pacing of the film are phenomenal in slowly and carefully peeling back the layers of the family dynamic. Throughout the film we question the actions and underlying motivations of each of the characters. By the end, the full vision snaps into focus and we are left with a melancholy ending that really sneaks up and packs quite an emotional punch.Let's begin with Noriko. For the length of the movie she is adamantly against marriage, especially re-marriage. As the details of the backstory filter in, her reasoning begins to become clear. Noriko lost her mother which has obviously affected her very much. As a result, she is very close with her father and wary of leaving him behind. Her mother's death obviously must have been very hard for her father as well, and she references the fact that he needs her to take care of him. She feels that she must be there for him because she fears he may be lonely if she leaves and won't be able to cope as a widower. She is also understandably protective of her father – she is afraid to lose him like she did her mother. Thus, she can't bear the thought of him ever remarrying which, in her mind, could potentially jeopardize their relationship. As the film progresses though, pressures on Noriko to get married come from all sides – her aunt, father, and best friend (and ironically, divorcée) all urging her that she must take this long overdue and necessary step. To her, the relationship she has with her father is more than enough and brings her contentment. However, she is made to feel like she is being selfish in staying home with him, especially when it is suggested that he wishes to remarry. Thus, she eventually gives into these pressures and marries at the end of the film, but is clearly devastated and unhappy with her choice.Shukichi can be analyzed in the same way. He seems to be very happy with his daughter home and with the lives they are leading together. It isn't until his sister, Masa, makes the observation that Noriko has gone far too long without marrying, that he begins to question things. He too begins to pressure Noriko that she must marry, and begins to insinuate that he wishes to remarry as well and that she need not worry about taking care of him. Many conversations seem to have taken place between Shukichi and Masa off-screen, as at the end of the movie it is revealed that Shukichi's plans for remarriage were fabricated by both he and Masa in order to influence Noriko in her decision. Shukuchi feigns happiness at Noriko's wedding (as does Noriko… quite poorly), but at the end of the film we see him return home to his empty house in a devastating scene where his true distress becomes apparent. In this moment, the movie strikes a powerful note as we realize neither Noriko nor Shukichi wanted for this marriage to happen and neither are happy with the outcome. They were both made to feel selfish by others around them – Shukichi for keeping Noriko home so long with him and Noriko for keeping her father from remarrying. In reality, neither of these two things are true, but the characters are made to believe them through the pressures of their family and friends. Now, they find themselves in places that neither of them wanted or needed, but that society has deemed "correct" for them. It's a poignant and thoughtful tale which is marvelously achieved by the strength of spectacular direction and acting. Setsuko Hara is absolutely radiant and Noriko. She shines in every single scene and has such an effortless quality to her acting that makes her every move feel completely natural. Chishû Ryû as Shukichi is equally brilliant as a caring father who is conflicted between keeping his daughter by his side and shooing her out the door to a more socially acceptable life. And everything of course is tied together by Ozu's absolutely masterful direction which makes for a film that is deep, thought-provoking, and emotionally resonant.

vuphandung1510 A typical Ozu film at its finest It is easy to state what Late Spring is not about: it is not about a young woman trying nobly to sacrifice herself and her own happiness in order dutifully to serve her widowed father in his lonely old age. If Noriko resists the social pressures that compel her into marriage (Ozu's comprehensive analysis of those pressures shows them convincingly to be ir resistible), it is because she is thoroughly aware that she will never be as happy as she is within her present situation. The film precisely defines the choice that contemporary society (post-war Japan, with its conflicts between traditional values and Americanization) offers her: subordination to a husband in marriage, or entrance into the "emancipated" world of alienated labour (i.e., subordination, as secretary, to a male boss). The latter option is embodied in Noriko's best friend Aya, a young woman so completely "modernized" that her legs get stiff if she has to sit on a tatami mat. Far from denouncing the breach with traditional values, Ozu presents Aya with immense sympathy and good humour, the emphasis being on the constraints of her situation. On the other hand, traditional marriage is never presented in Ozu's films as in itself fulfilling, and especially not for the woman (Norikio's father informs her that her mother wept through most of the first years of their marriage).With her father, Noriko has a freedom that she will never regain: she can go bicycling by the sea with handsome young men, visit sake bars with casual associates, enjoy relatively unrestricted movement. And movement (and its suppression) is the film's key motif and structuring principle. The first half contains (for Ozu) an unusual amount of camera movement accompanying or parelleling Noriko's sense of enjoyment and exhilaration (the train journey, the bicycle ride). The last camera movement in the film occurs in the scene in the park where her father and aunt finalize plans for her marriage. The film then moves inexorably to Noriko's entrapment in an irreversible process, her immobilization (beneath the heavy traditional wedding costume) and final obliteration (the empty mirror that replaces any depiction of the wedding ceremony). The film's final shot of the sea is commonly interpreted in terms of Zen-ian resignation and acceptance (Ozu once remarked that western critics don't understand his films, so "they always talk about Zen or something"); it can equally be read as a reminder of the bicycle ride and the lost freedom.

valadas The Japanese people are gentle, nice and polite and plentiful of good feelings. They respect the best values in family and society. Ties between children and parents are very deep. This movie shows that atmosphere in a remarkable way through beautiful and delicate scenes of sociability and intimacy and some dialogues of restrained emotion. A daughter who has already passed the age in which she should have married, lives with her widowed father taking care of him. But her father and her aunt keep pressing her for getting married soon because they think that will be for her own happiness and because socially she should already have done that. Particularly the aunt is engaged in getting her a fiancé. She is however very reluctant on that matter since she feels very happy living with his father and taking care of him. She ends up by yielding to his father's entreaties feeling very sorrowful although she tries to seem cheerful at the idea. Her father even recognizes he would like to have his daughter with him but feels that children must go and leave their families when they become adults. The movie ends on the wedding day (whose ceremony we don't watch not even we ever see the bridegroom since this is not important by the movie's goals). There are two scenes particularly dramatic though in very restrained attitudes. First while the bride is getting dressed in typical Japanese attire for the wedding ceremony not showing any signs of cheerfulness and the last scene when the father comes back home alone and sits down feeling silently his loneliness making us feel deeply the girl's absence where she was so lively before. The movie viewer feels very deeply what goes in their minds and hearts while watching these scenes. The performers know well to communicate their feelings to us without great explosive dramatic scenes. They do a great job at that. This movie was classified recently by a team of British critics as one of the 100 best movies ever made.

kurosawakira A heartwarming, amazing, impeccable film. I still remember the shock I felt when I saw this. Such a visually radical, contemplative film full of so much emotion that it's bursting at the seams. The same atmospheric quietude that there's in all of his late films, contemplative but so telling and never silent, much like the performances, particularly that of Hara Setsuko. Then there's the humor: there are some of the most hilarious things in this film that I know of, including Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd and the Marx brothers.The story appears simple, of course. That's the Ozu way — a simple skeleton that he uses to build on, visually, above all. The first shot at the beginning of the film, perhaps the third or fourth of the whole film, when we enter the house for the first time, is such a powerful transitory shot spatially that it gives me goosebumps: first a few introductory shots outdoors, the train station and so on, and then suddenly we enter the confined space of the house as if we were lying on our belly on the ground, looking at a room from the far end of the hallway. And then Noriko (Hara) enters.The movie is full of such magical moments. The most famous scene of the film, that at the Noh theatre, is one, them leaving Kyoto for the last time is another, the final scene of the film being the logical emotional climax. It's marvelous, really: it's not over the top as if it tried either to go for realism or mechanically manipulate our emotions. On the contrary, I believe Ozu succeeds emotionally because his films open quietly and slowly. He doesn't push us into accepting anything, and he doesn't push his characters into doing anything, either. Marvelously crafted as if everything just appeared in front of our eyes without any rehearsal. It's a sign of a great filmmaker to let us into the film so deeply. The images stay.