The first time I read about Ozu, I immediately became obsessed to see his films. Based on what I heard, I knew I would love them. The first one I saw was Tokyo Story, pet of film historians, which disappointed me (although I've later learned to love it like any other Ozu). After that came End of Summer and Late Spring, which both floored me with both emotion *and* intellectual delight. Even after seeing it I can't stop thinking about Late Spring, and now I'm ready to herald it as one of the greatest films I've ever seen.
Late Spring perfectly encapsulates Ozu's one and only theme: the inevitable sadness of life caused by change. It's a theme that never goes away. However, hardly no one else than the Japanese were able to tell you about change in the 1940's. Mind you, Ozu made his greatest films during a period when Japan became under the Western influence: Coca Cola and baseball became commonplace, industrialism and capitalism accelerated rapidly, and the concept of a traditional Japanese family and society became to fall apart. Considering the value of traditional Japanese culture, this change shouldn't be underestimated. Unlike Wim Wenders in his Ozu documentary Tokyo-ga, Ozu's point of view in this matter isn't preachy, however. What makes his films so fantastic in the end game is his sophisticated yet simple-minded philosophy of life: change and sadness are both essential and inevitable in life, and we have to accept it.
Not that Late Spring isn't amazing when forgetting its context. Ozu's relentlessly formalist visual style his apparent here, and both Chishu Ryu and Setsuko Hara deliver what are staggering performances. The film is brilliantly lyrical, especially the ending, which I consider one of the saddest and most touching movie endings aside Robert Bresson's Au hasard Balthasar: the father (Chishu Ryu) returns to home from his daughter's wedding, sits down to peel an apple, but soon understands his loneliness, and how inevitable it is. From here Ozu cuts to a simple shot of waves hitting shore, without trying to underline or prove anything. The End. This is what movies are all about.
Late Spring perfectly encapsulates Ozu's one and only theme: the inevitable sadness of life caused by change. It's a theme that never goes away. However, hardly no one else than the Japanese were able to tell you about change in the 1940's. Mind you, Ozu made his greatest films during a period when Japan became under the Western influence: Coca Cola and baseball became commonplace, industrialism and capitalism accelerated rapidly, and the concept of a traditional Japanese family and society became to fall apart. Considering the value of traditional Japanese culture, this change shouldn't be underestimated. Unlike Wim Wenders in his Ozu documentary Tokyo-ga, Ozu's point of view in this matter isn't preachy, however. What makes his films so fantastic in the end game is his sophisticated yet simple-minded philosophy of life: change and sadness are both essential and inevitable in life, and we have to accept it.
Not that Late Spring isn't amazing when forgetting its context. Ozu's relentlessly formalist visual style his apparent here, and both Chishu Ryu and Setsuko Hara deliver what are staggering performances. The film is brilliantly lyrical, especially the ending, which I consider one of the saddest and most touching movie endings aside Robert Bresson's Au hasard Balthasar: the father (Chishu Ryu) returns to home from his daughter's wedding, sits down to peel an apple, but soon understands his loneliness, and how inevitable it is. From here Ozu cuts to a simple shot of waves hitting shore, without trying to underline or prove anything. The End. This is what movies are all about.