Noda

Saichi Sugimoto es un veterano de la Guerra Ruso-Japonesa de 1904, sobreviviente de la Colina 203 que se ha vuelto gambusino en Hokaido para pagar una costosa operación de los ojos para la viuda de su compañero muerto en la guerra, Toraji. Ahí escucha la historia de un tesoro reunido por los miembros de la etnia Ainu para defenderse de la colonización japonesa de la isla, acumulado por un grupo criminal.

Mikio Naruse was one of the most popular directors in Japan, a crafter of exquisite melodramas, mostly about women confined by their social and domestic circumstances. Though often compared with Yasujiro Ozu and Kenji Mizoguchi for his style and treatment of characters, Naruse was a unique artist, making heartrending, brilliantly photographed and edited films about the impossible pursuit of happiness. From the outset of his career, with his silent films of the early thirties, Naruse zeroed in on the lives of the kinds of people - geisha, housewives, waitresses - who would continue to fascinate him for the next three decades. Though he made two dozen silent films, only five remain in existence; these works - poignant, dazzlingly made dramas all - are collected here, newly restored and on DVD for the first time, and featuring optional new scores by noted musicians Robin Holcomb and Wayne Horvitz.

The last film by Yasujiro Ozu was also his final masterpiece, a gently heartbreaking story about a man’s dignifed resignation to life’s shifting currents and society’s modernization. Though the widower Shuhei (frequent Ozu leading man Chishu Ryu) has been living comfortably for years with his grown daughter, a series of events leads him to accept and encourage her marriage and departure from their home. As elegantly composed and achingly tender as any of the Japanese master’s films, An Autumn Afternoon is one of cinema’s fondest farewells.

A desperate man with a sick daughter decides to commit a robbery in order to help her. He begins to feel remorse though, which makes him question his decision.