Spoonatects Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

Jacomedi A Surprisingly Unforgettable Movie!

Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Ricardo Daly The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

gavin6942 Noriko (Setsuko Hara) is twenty-seven years old and still living with her widowed father (Chishu Ryu). Everybody tries to talk her into marrying, but Noriko wants to stay at home caring for her father.So, this is the first part of the so-called "Noriko trilogy", and I suppose most people would argue that part three is the best. At least, it is the most well-known: "Tokyo Story". But this one had more resonance with me. I loved the cinematography, and I quite enjoyed the Noriko portrayed by Setsuo Hara this time around.The American occupation was also an interesting touch. Ozu could easily have worked around it, making this a purely Japanese film. But he chose to have Coca-Cola signs and other things suggesting an American presence, even if no American is ever seen.

Lilcount It is one of those strange coincidences that occur in life that on the very day the passing of Japanese acting legend Setsuko Hara is announced, the world premiere of the digital restoration of one of her greatest films, "Late Spring," happens at MOMA in New York.The restoration is a godsend to those who have seen this film only in poor quality circulating prints. There is no more flicker, no more warpage. One of Yasujiro Ozu's greatest achievements now looks the part.Words cannot do justice to the magnificence of Setsuko Hara's performance as Noriko. Her face and eyes convey her inner torment as her perfect existence is shattered by society's, and her reluctant father's, demand that she marry.Near the end, Noriko is shown in a mirror in her wedding kimono. Her smile never wavers, but her eyes reveal her despair. Hara's work here is one of the few performances to rival Falconetti's in Dreyer's "La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc."But Ozu does not neglect Chishu Ryu, whose last scene is heartbreaking.This film is a minimalist "Vertigo." That is to say, it's one of the greatest films ever made.

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.

Ilpo Hirvonen As in the films of Bresson, to Ozu the purity of style always coincides with an uncompromising moral perspective. He never lets his characters nor his audience get away from a profound dilemma with an easy answer. Thus, Ozu's films are always veritably life-enhancing, exhaustive, in the word's most definitive meaning. In "Late Spring" Ozu's mature, extremely laconic style is at its most developed before his subsequent films in which he went to define it even further. The movement of the camera is precisely considered; it is often positioned approximately one meter from the ground, and often left to explore the space long after the action has taken place. The lingering narrative of "Late Spring" fits very well for Ozu's understated poetry which encapsulates his whole vision of humanity and the world. The impressionistic picking of details in the aesthetics triggers associations to various thematic contrasts, such as infinity and insularity, but in addition to such stylization the film bears a striking resemblance to Italian neo-realism with its documentary-like observations and dark visual tones. The quiet emptiness of the beginning shots -- the essence of Ozu's poetics -- and their atmosphere remain as an echo in all of the scenes of "Late Spring" where there are no superfluous images. In his unique style Ozu has set the rhythmic pace for the junctions of the scenes with brief shots of nature that seem to express the transience of life; the importance of moments; and their absolute beauty. Once again Ozu deals with the theme of collision of generations as people must ponder responsibility and freedom with regards to tradition and family. Not surprisingly, the film has no black and white solutions to offer. Ozu's honest pessimism, his Chekhovian wisdom of life; and Buddhist acceptance merge together in the beauty of his aesthetics. At its heart, "Late Spring" is one of his most profound meditations on happiness, its pursuit, limits, nature and impossibility.When it comes to the story or narrative of "Late Spring," it is vital to discuss inner drama. For this is truly a film about characters who cannot express themselves, their true desires and wishes. It is to them whom Ozu gives his silent and tender interpretation, understanding their deepest experience of existence. In this sense, "Late Spring" can be seen as a universal tragedy of the difficulty of expressing oneself; of revealing one's innermost emotions and dreams.