In most of Yasujiro Ozu's movies, and in all of the ones seen by me, the people are, more or less, middle class. In "Late Spring," that description holds just barely, as the characters belong to the extreme academic elite. (I did a postdoc in Japan, but didn't move in circles anywhere near that rarefied.)
"Late Spring" tells the story of a widowed father and his single daughter. The father, a professor of considerable status, is very much an iconoclast, with a familiarity with foreign cultures that is deep and broad. The daughter, at ease among her father's colleagues, casually eats bread and bakes cakes herself. In many circumstances, these behaviors surely precipitate hails of abuse faster than you can say Masao Miyamoto. Yet the father has not hardened into a simplistic contrarian or provocateur, but shows a broad-minded appreciation of the variety of things wanted from life, and a far-sighted sense of the effort needed to attain them.
Although the daughter is growing a bit old for marriage, she and her father have a comfortable and interesting relationship, and they could easily go on for some time as they are. Marriage would be an unpleasant disruption, as the father is otherwise alone, and the daughter, not in love with anyone, cannot expect to find a match as sophisticated and companionable. But there is no future for her in remaining single.
Like, and in contrast to, Spielberg's "A.I.," with its negative illustration that love entails a concern for the other's future, "Late Spring" has a strong positive illustration of this -- the father's love for the daughter is especially palpable. The movie follows father and daughter feeling out things during the course of work, at home, and among friends. While the plot is in one sense pedestrian, in another sense, this is a critical point in their lives, and it is extremely dramatic, not despite but because of the absence of false melodrama. And it is a pleasure to spend two hours observing these thoughtful and fully human characters.
By most descriptions, the father merely pretends to toy with the idea of remarrying so his daughter will let go, and in fact plans to live out his days alone. But I don't see the father as having completely closed off the possibility. A marriage is arranged for the daughter, one that strikes me as realistic and nice. What does come poignantly to an end with the daughter's wedding is the life shared with her father.
"Late Spring" tells the story of a widowed father and his single daughter. The father, a professor of considerable status, is very much an iconoclast, with a familiarity with foreign cultures that is deep and broad. The daughter, at ease among her father's colleagues, casually eats bread and bakes cakes herself. In many circumstances, these behaviors surely precipitate hails of abuse faster than you can say Masao Miyamoto. Yet the father has not hardened into a simplistic contrarian or provocateur, but shows a broad-minded appreciation of the variety of things wanted from life, and a far-sighted sense of the effort needed to attain them.
Although the daughter is growing a bit old for marriage, she and her father have a comfortable and interesting relationship, and they could easily go on for some time as they are. Marriage would be an unpleasant disruption, as the father is otherwise alone, and the daughter, not in love with anyone, cannot expect to find a match as sophisticated and companionable. But there is no future for her in remaining single.
Like, and in contrast to, Spielberg's "A.I.," with its negative illustration that love entails a concern for the other's future, "Late Spring" has a strong positive illustration of this -- the father's love for the daughter is especially palpable. The movie follows father and daughter feeling out things during the course of work, at home, and among friends. While the plot is in one sense pedestrian, in another sense, this is a critical point in their lives, and it is extremely dramatic, not despite but because of the absence of false melodrama. And it is a pleasure to spend two hours observing these thoughtful and fully human characters.
By most descriptions, the father merely pretends to toy with the idea of remarrying so his daughter will let go, and in fact plans to live out his days alone. But I don't see the father as having completely closed off the possibility. A marriage is arranged for the daughter, one that strikes me as realistic and nice. What does come poignantly to an end with the daughter's wedding is the life shared with her father.