| Yasujiro Ozu / Early Fridays in November |
 Yasujiro Ozu, one of the most revered of all Japanese directors, resembled a printmaker as he obsessively reworked his themes: the domestic life of everyday people, their rituals and emotional transformations. He pared his films to their essence through the use of methodical pacing, minimal camera movement, and his signature use of evocative "pillow" shots (georgeous atmospheric inserts) and symmetrical low-angle perspectives that mimick that of sitting on a Japanese floor mat. But there is irony in focusing on his exquisite technique, since the result was a more direct relationship with his mainstream audience. He wasn't an arthouse filmmaker--his movies were hits, massively popular ones that people related to. The singularity of his vision, while appealing to cineastes as subtle and supple enough for rigorous study, also meant that his audience knew exactly what they were going to get, to their continual satisfaction. They're as familiar, satisfying and moving as ! a beloved television show, but with the profundity and lasting depth of a time-honored great work of art.
11/07 @ 7:30pm / SERIES: yasujiro ozu
 Late Spring
shown with
Late Autumn
Late Spring features a young woman (Setsuko Hara) torn between living happily with her widowed father, and the intrusive societal expectations of childbearing and household duties. To prevent her from becoming a "Christmas cake" (Japanese slang for "spinster"), the father pretends to be newly engaged, in that hope that it will make Noriko eventually move out and find a man. Ozu transgresses the scabrous aftermath of the war in an attempt at reconstruction through social relationships and generational conflict, as he keeps the characters' emotions guarded until the film's end. Late Autumn is his most successful reworking of a former feature (Late Spring), in which Hara comes full circle from eternal daughter to eternal mother and is now chided by her own outspoken offspring who finds the thought of her remarriage offensive. An expertly constructed reflection of the modern Japanese woman, it also contains some of the funniest moments to be seen in all of Ozu's body of! work.
Late Spring Dir. Yasujiro Ozu, 1949, 35mm, 108 min.
Late Autumn Dir. Yasujiro Ozu, 1960, 35mm, 128 min.
Tickets - $10
11/14 @ 7:30pm / SERIES: yasujiro ozu
 Equinox Flower
shown with
A Hen In The Wind
In 1958, Ozu made his first color film, Equinox Flower, which focuses on a young woman (the ravishing Fujiko Yamamoto) who wishes to choose her own husband against her father's wishes. As time goes on, the father's feelings on the situation turn, as he ruminates on how his own arranged marriage has affected his life. Ozu's use of color greatly enhances the tone of the film, mirroring the change and renewal of the seasons, as the younger generation finds it has more control over their own lives while the elders’ influence recedes. A Hen in the Wind, by far the rarest film in the series and one of the most unique in Ozu’s entire oeuvre, details the harrowing plight of an impoverished dressmaker awaiting her soldier husband’s return, as her young son falls ill. Ozu's portrayal of her desperate leap into prostitution in order to pay the bills is both severe and touching, and elevates the material beyond simple tear-jerker status into something wholly transcende! nt.
Equinox Flower Dir. Yasujiro Ozu, 1958, 35mm, 118 min.
A Hen In The Wind Dir. Yasujiro Ozu, 1948, 35mm, 84 min.
Tickets - $10
11/21 @ 7:30pm / SERIES: yasujiro ozu
An Autumn Afternoon
shown with
There Was A Father
Ozu's final film An Autumn Afternoon, (literally translated as The Taste of An Autumn Mackerel), undoubtedly influenced by the death of his mother, is a serene meditation on aging and loneliness as well as a fine display of Ozu's wicked humour. Seeing his only daughter grow up too quickly and wanting marriage, a widower war veteran becomes painfully aware of his advanced age, the changing times around him, and his isolation in the arms of alcohol. Ozu died one year after this salient attempt to concentrate the whole of six decades into an achingly beautiful swan song, his rigorous poetic style honed to perfection. There Was A Father, produced during the war, was one of Ozu’s personal favorites. A widowed high school teacher sacrifices everything for his son’s education, only to bring about a permanent and irreversible separation between them. This bittersweet tone poem about familiar duty coming before emotions was one of Ozu's first satisfying attempts at ho! ning his trademark visual style.
An Autumn Afternoon Dir. Yasujiro Ozu, 1962, 35mm, 113 min.
There Was A Father Dir. Yasujiro Ozu, 1942, 35mm, 94 min.
Tickets - $10
11/28 @ 7:30pm / SERIES: yasujiro ozu
 Tokyo Story
shown with
Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family
Tokyo Story is widely regarded as being the crown jewel of Ozu’s career, as its consistent placing on all-time top ten film lists around the world along with Citizen Kane, Rules Of the Game and Vertigo will attest. An elderly couple visits their busy, self-absorbed offspring in Tokyo and are met with an indifference that only serves to reveal permanent emotional differences--which the parents gracefully meet with quiet resignation and then return home. Deceptively simple, Tokyo Story finds Ozu's use of ellipsis at its most impactful, as major plot points are left out to accrue a gradual effect all the more potent. One of Ozu's first homeland box-office hits, The Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family, also deals with family neglect, as "wealthy" Mr. Toda dies of a heart attack, leaving his large clan deep in debt as they discover that his faulty business dealings have left them penniless.
Tokyo Story Dir. Yasujiro Ozu, 1953, 35mm, 136 min.
Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family Dir. Yasujiro Ozu, 1941, 35mm, 105 min.
Tickets - $10
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