Yasujiro Ozu

These rare early films from Yasujiro Ozu are considered by many to be two of the Japanese director’s finest works, paving the way for a career among the most sensitive and significant in cinema. The Only Son and There Was a Father make a graceful pair, bookending a crucial period in Japanese history. In the former, Ozu’s first sound film, made during a time of intense economic crisis, a mother sacrifices her own happiness for her son’s education; the latter, released in the midst of World War II, stars Ozu stalwart Chishu Ryu as a widowed schoolteacher whose devotion to his son ends up driving them apart. Criterion proudly presents these nearly lost treasures for the first time on home video.

The Mamiya family is seeking a husband for their daughter, Noriko, but she has ideas of her own. Played by the extraordinary Setsuko Hara, Noriko impulsively chooses her childhood friend, at once fulfilling her family's desires while tearing them apart. A seemingly simple story, Early Summer is one of Yasujiro Ozu's most complex works—a nuanced examination of life's changes across three generations.

Undoubtedly influenced by the death, during filming, of his mother, with whom he had lived all his life, Ozu's final film is both a serene meditation on aging and loneliness, and a very funny film in places. Having arranged the marriage of his only daughter, a widower becomes painfully aware of his advanced age and his isolation. Solace is sought in alcohol and drunken comradeship which give rise to some of the funniest scenes of Ozu's later films. Ozu died a year after making this film so it became his last thoughts on a recurring subject. Recalling Late Autumn and Early Spring, Ozu's film is simple and sublime. [Literally, the Japanese title "Samma no Aji " means The Taste of Mackerel].

A small theatrical troupe revisits a remote island town after some years' absence. The aging leading actor is particularly anxious to stop because he had a son by one of the local women and wants to see him again. It was photographed by Kazuo Miyagawa, one of Japan's greatest cinematographers (Rashomon, Yojimbo, Ugetsu, Enjo, Kagi). Ozu said, "About this time, CinemaScope was getting popular. I wanted to have nothing to do with it, and consequently I shot more close-ups and used shorter shots." (Reacting against the long shots and long scenes typical to Scope movies of the time). Donald Richie called this film, "the most physically beautiful of all of Ozu's pictures".

This moody, lyrical work is loosely based on an American silent called The Barker. Infinitely superior to its model, it is the story of the leader of a small group of traveling players who returns to a small town and meets his son, the product of a distant affair. Ozu transforms the slightly melodramatic tale into an atmospheric and intense drama. Donald Richie has called this film, "the first of those eight-reel universes in which everything takes on a consistency greater than life: in short, a work of art." Its best feature is the depiction of life on the boards - the empty bowls to catch raindrops through the leaking roofs, the pantomime 'dog' who misses his cue and the casual cigarettes between exits and entrances. Ozu remade the film in colour in 1959 as Floating Weeds.

A young salaried office worker is bored with both his job and his wife. He has a slight affair with the office flirt; he and his wife quarrel. Later he accepts a transfer to the country. Ozu said of the film, "Although I hadn't made a white-collar story for a long time, I wanted to show the life of a man with such a job - his happiness over graduation and finally becoming a member of society, his hopes for the future gradually dissolving, his realizing that, even though he has worked for years, he has accomplished nothing.".

The lightest variant on Ozu's favourite theme. Instead of a father/daughter relationship, it focuses on a widow and the daughter who finds even the thought of her mother's remarriage offensive. There are new touches here: the comic chorus of old rogues trying to sort out both women's future and Mariko Okada as the 'modern miss' who cuts through tradition to ensure a happy ending. She's proof that not all Ozu's characters are meek and passive.

Ozu's hilarious Technicolor re-working of his silent I Was Born, But. . ., Good Morning (Ohayo) is the story of two young boys in suburban Tokyo who take a vow of silence after their parents refuse to buy them a television set. Shot from the perspective of the petulant brothers, Good Morning is an enchantingly satirical portrait of family life that gives rise to gags about romance, gossip, and the consumerism of modern Japan.

Those who think of Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu only in terms of his favorite subject matter and distinctive style - films about eldest daughters of aging families reluctantly persuaded to marry and leave behind the parents they love, told in static, sitting-position shots filmed a few feet off the ground and cut together in straight cuts with the actors often looking directly into the camera - will be quite surprised by Dragnet Girl (Hijosen no onna, 1933) a stylish silent crime thriller with much to recommend it.

Another close examination of family life, Ozu's first, gorgeous colour film is presented from the viewpoint of the younger generation. Focusing on a modern young woman (Fujiko Yamamoto) who wishes to choose her husband over her father's objections, Ozu opens an age-old discussion on respect for the beliefs and values of elders and the tensions spawned by youthful rebellion. As the father is slowly won over, the entire family is subjected to Ozu's gentle irony and loving detail. The colour enhances the tone and mood of the film and showcases Yamamoto's famous beauty. The film begins and ends ironically on the railway - first with a warning sign 'strong winds expected', finally with a train gliding into a blissful autumn afternoon, all parties reconciled.