Part of Trilogies, Part 2 and The Noriko Trilogy
One of the most powerful of Yasujiro Ozu’s family portraits, LATE SPRING tells the story of a widowed father who feels compelled to marry off his beloved only daughter. Eminent Ozu players Chishu Ryu and Setsuko Hara command this poignant tale of love and loss in postwar Japan, which remains as potent today as ever — and a strong justification for its maker’s inclusion in the pantheon of cinema’s greatest directors.
“To watch Ozu's films is to watch elegant simplicity, although they are meticulously complex. It's even a relaxing experience — you can almost feel your heart rate lowering — yet there is much human drama on the screen, and much wisdom.” —G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle “Yasujiro Ozu’s 1949 film inaugurated his majestic late period: it’s here that he decisively renounces melodrama (and, indeed, most surface action of any kind) and lets his camera settle into the still, long-take contemplation of his gently drawn characters.” —Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader “Each shot in LATE SPRING is striking on its own; the mature Ozu belongs to that rare category of filmmakers whose work can be recognized from a single frame. But together — with all their abrupt shifts in visual perspective and time — they become a mosaic, deeply poignant and ultimately mysterious in the way it envisions a relationship between two people trapped by how much they care for one another.” —Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, A.V. Club
