This 1960 film by the great Japanese writer-director Yasujiro Ozu can be viewed as being part of a significant transition in cinema history. The film's creator would himself be dead (a tragic early demise at the age of 60) in three years and Ozu's national cinema, within which the film-maker's quiet family dramas would take on iconic status (extending to world cinema), would begin transitioning to a new phase (popularly known as the Japanese New Wave). Late Autumn is closely related (sometimes being billed as a 'remake', despite being based on different source novels) to Ozu's earlier (1949) masterpiece, Late Spring, with the earlier film's (and Ozu regular) Setsuko Hara now playing the mother and widow Akiko Miwa to Yoko Tsukasa's daughter, Ayako, with Akiko looking to 'marry off' her daughter (as compared with the earlier film where Hara's character was in the daughter role to her widower father, played by Chishu Ryu, who returns here as Akiko's brother-in-law). Again, Ozu gives us a beautifully restrained family drama, this time in colour, and with a good deal more (ironic) humour than the earlier film, although Late Autumn's touching qualities eventually become just as evident they do in Late Spring.
Perhaps the main 'progression' in Late Autumn as compared to earlier Ozus is the developing independence of the female of the species (of course, Ozu is one of cinema's greatest ever directors of women, foregrounding their role in family and society more generally). We get a very stark (and revealing in terms of generational differences) comparison between mother Akiko - still bedecked in the traditional kimono and knowing 'her place' in (Japanese) society and the world - her daughter Ayako - more progressively attired and beginning to question the importance of marriage, but still 'fawning' in the company of men - and Mariko Akada's co-worker to Ayako, Yuriko Sasaki - the most 'liberated' and outspoken of all the women here, indeed confrontational in the film's defining sequence, where Yuriko faces off with Ozu's trio of middle-aged ex-acquaintances of Akiko's deceased husband, who are looking to 'marry off' both Ayako and Akiko. Indeed, so 'in your face' is Yuriko's stance in this set-piece that, despite the excellence of both Hara and Tsukasa, Akada could be regarded as having a film-stealing role. The aforementioned male trio (expertly played by Shin Saburi, Nobuo Nakamura and Ryuji Kita) are, of course, also pivotal to Ozu's drama, their role, in effect, morphing from 'patriarchal chauvinism' (even if somewhat light-hearted in tone), through their role as comedic backbone to the drama to finally admitting a degree of culpability in upsetting the Miwa family dynamic whilst, at the same time, revealing their (and Ozu's) overriding sense of humanism.
Visually, unsurprisingly given Ozu's well-established approach and his use again of veteran and long-time collaborator Yuharu Atsuta as cinematographer, Late Autumn is characterised by static, low-angle, perfectly framed shots (even if in colour) with the human drama punctuated by repeated, short series of shots of the film's (predominantly) interior settings. These short interludes, accompanied by Takanobu Saito's often melancholic score, serve to accentuate the subtle thoughtfulness of Ozu's creation.
Late Autumn may not quite reach the levels of subtle family emotion of Tokyo Story and Late Spring, but the film, with its notable themes of social development, is another undoubted masterpiece from its director.
Perhaps the main 'progression' in Late Autumn as compared to earlier Ozus is the developing independence of the female of the species (of course, Ozu is one of cinema's greatest ever directors of women, foregrounding their role in family and society more generally). We get a very stark (and revealing in terms of generational differences) comparison between mother Akiko - still bedecked in the traditional kimono and knowing 'her place' in (Japanese) society and the world - her daughter Ayako - more progressively attired and beginning to question the importance of marriage, but still 'fawning' in the company of men - and Mariko Akada's co-worker to Ayako, Yuriko Sasaki - the most 'liberated' and outspoken of all the women here, indeed confrontational in the film's defining sequence, where Yuriko faces off with Ozu's trio of middle-aged ex-acquaintances of Akiko's deceased husband, who are looking to 'marry off' both Ayako and Akiko. Indeed, so 'in your face' is Yuriko's stance in this set-piece that, despite the excellence of both Hara and Tsukasa, Akada could be regarded as having a film-stealing role. The aforementioned male trio (expertly played by Shin Saburi, Nobuo Nakamura and Ryuji Kita) are, of course, also pivotal to Ozu's drama, their role, in effect, morphing from 'patriarchal chauvinism' (even if somewhat light-hearted in tone), through their role as comedic backbone to the drama to finally admitting a degree of culpability in upsetting the Miwa family dynamic whilst, at the same time, revealing their (and Ozu's) overriding sense of humanism.
Visually, unsurprisingly given Ozu's well-established approach and his use again of veteran and long-time collaborator Yuharu Atsuta as cinematographer, Late Autumn is characterised by static, low-angle, perfectly framed shots (even if in colour) with the human drama punctuated by repeated, short series of shots of the film's (predominantly) interior settings. These short interludes, accompanied by Takanobu Saito's often melancholic score, serve to accentuate the subtle thoughtfulness of Ozu's creation.
Late Autumn may not quite reach the levels of subtle family emotion of Tokyo Story and Late Spring, but the film, with its notable themes of social development, is another undoubted masterpiece from its director.