An Autumn Afternoon

(1962) An Autumn Afternoon
Yasujiro Ozu, or Ozu Yasujiro is a great filmmaker. Nobody else could get away with what he gets away with, but mainly because no other filmmaker would have the confidence in their style to stick to it as he does, and that is why he succeeds at it. He doesn't do it half the time, he does it all the time, and he does it with complete conviction. His style, as unconventional an d unorthadox as it is, is flawless in and of itself. This is why he succeeds in his filmmaking, because he has created a style and a genre unique to himself, and he has perfected it.

Ozu's last film is another marriage picture, with more or less the whole gang playing in it, though he more or less has the whole gang in every movie so this is really no different. I won't be able to see "End of Summer" until the Eclipse box set "Late Ozu" is released in a month or so; but I do like the return to outdor segueis, which Ozu did not really use in "Late Autumn". The whole film in a way felt like a culmination of everything that Ozu has done so well in the past. The story takes a little longer to develope than in some of his other marriage pictures, and features some really strong female characters, and some rather weak male characters. Some humour and some sadness as in all of Ozu's marriage pictures, with the additional sadness of the reality of growing old. A classic Ozu picture. Not his best, but a wonderful way to say goodbye.