An Autumn Afternoon

A film by Yasujiro Ozu

Yasujiro Ozu’s elegiac final film, An Autumn Afternoon, charts the inevitable eclipse of older generations by irreverent youth. Revisiting the story of his earlier masterpiece Late Spring (1949), Ozu once again casts Chishu Ryu in the role of Hirayama, the concerned father to unmarried Michiko. Harangued on all sides to marry off Michiko, Hirayama reluctantly prepares to bid his old life farewell. A cast of tragi-comic characters weaves seamlessly through this gently satirical portrayal of lifes inevitable, endless cycle.

Ozu’s rarely seen post-war melodrama, A Hen in the Wind, is also included here. In a Japan recently devastated by World War II a devoted, near-destitute mother turns to prostitution to pay medical bills when her son falls dangerously ill.