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 An Autumn Afternoon More at IMDbPro »Sanma no aji (original title)

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25 out of 26 people found the following review useful:
A true work of art., 25 September 2005
10/10
Author: kmsc2c from United States

When I first saw this film it struck me as being a very unusual and odd little movie. The camera work was direct and straightforward, as if the director were composing a still life painting. With the passage of time I remembered this film not as a whole but as a series of vignettes, the sailor marching in the bar, the unrequited lovers waiting for a train on the platform, the father staring into his daughter's empty room. I have recently seen An Autumn Afternoon again, and was not disappointed. Each scene has an almost indescribable longing, an ephemeral quality that speaks to the beauty and sadness of everyday life. I love this film, it is a true work of art.

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23 out of 23 people found the following review useful:
An experience that will last a lifetime, 5 May 2003
Author: Howard Schumann from Vancouver, B.C.

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

An Autumn Afternoon, the final film by the great Yasujiro Ozu, is a portrayal of family interaction and conflict that provides a moving summation of a career that produced 53 films in 60 years. Similar in theme to his 1949 film Late Spring, a widowed father, Shuhei Hirayama, portrayed by the wonderful Chishu Ryu, wants his 24-year old daughter, Michiko, (Shima Iwashima) to marry but fears loneliness. After the death of her mother, as is traditional in Japanese families, Michiko has assumed her role, taking care of household chores and making sure that her father's needs are met. She feels no urge to marry and prefers to remain at home.

Much of An Autumn Afternoon consists of small vignettes of family life. One of these involves Hirayama's son Koichi (Keiji Sada) and his wife Akiko (Mariko Okada. Both seem to mirror the encroaching consumer values of the new Tokyo lit up with neon lights, Coca-Cola signs, and rooftop golf. They bicker about finances, borrow money from their parents, and talk about buying expensive golf clubs and leather handbags on installment. The film has moments of delightful humor. Hirayama spends a great amount of time at a bar run by a woman who looks like his former wife, reminiscing about the good old days and listening to a military march from World War II. In one of the funniest scenes, he talks to a former shipmate who tells him that if Japan had won the war, American women would be playing Japanese musical instruments and wearing geisha style wigs and they both agree that it was better that Japan lost.

When one of Hirayama's employees tells him she is leaving to get married, he begins to wonder whether or not it is also the time for Michiko. When Hirayama's friend Kawai (Nobuo Nakamura) proposes a match for Michiko, however, he does not tell his daughter about it, thinking there is plenty of time. The situation is crystallized when he has a reunion with an old school teacher Sakuma, (Eijiro Tono) known as "The Gourd" and notices how guilty his friend feels for not insisting that his daughter Tomoko marry when she had the opportunity. The result is an acceptance of the inevitable and the sadness that goes along with it. As An Autumn Afternoon ends, the camera pans around an empty room. We see an old man sitting on a chair, his head in his hands, weeping quietly. In his final moment of grace, Ozu has given us another experience that will last a lifetime.

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20 out of 20 people found the following review useful:
Ozu's Great Swan Song, 19 April 2008
10/10
Author: crossbow0106 from United States

This is Ozu's last film, and it is wonderful. At first, I wondered if it could be even good. It has similar themes of other, amazing films like "Late Spring" and "Early Summer", both of which had the truly amazing actress Setsuko Hara, who is not in this film. However, this film is just about as great as them, since it has one of the best acting performances of terrific Ozu regular Chishu Ryu. He plays the father, a widower with three children, two sons and a daughter. It is no surprise to me that the daughter Michiko, played by Shima Iwashita and Akiko the daughter in law, played by Mariko Okada, have had such long, varied careers in cinema. They are great in their roles. There is a certain sass to both of them which really comes across in their characters. They are also both beautiful. The story also has a great sideline, in which Mr. Ryu's old friends help out an teacher, nicknamed "The Gourd". From there, you meet the teacher's daughter Tanako, a familiar face to all Ozu fans. I was deeply affected by Tomako, even though her role is small. I feel her sadness and loneliness. Another great scene is when the father meets up with an old armed services buddy and they go to a local bar and play a war march. They are a bit drunk, and they salute. Playing the barmaid is the great actress Kyoko Kishida, star of the great "Manji" and "Woman In The Dunes". I was deeply interested in the lives of these people, and find the film to be just wonderful, displaying the emotions that a great Ozu film possesses. This film is profoundly moving. I would not start with this film as an introduction to Ozu, only because "Tokyo Story", "Late Spring" and "I Was Born, But" are such masterpieces, but this ranks with them. A deeply profound, excellent epitaph from Yasojiro Ozu, one of the greatest directors ever, from anywhere at any time. See it, you will not be disappointed. Rest in peace, Yasojiro Ozu.

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13 out of 14 people found the following review useful:
A Great Introduction To Ozu, 30 November 2002
10/10
Author: David (davidals@msn.com) from Chapel Hill, NC, USA



This was one of the first Ozu films I saw, and is one of my favorites. Ozu's themes - a family adjusts uneasily to the rapidly shifting traditions of life in middle-class, postwar Japan - are handled with great subtlety, and many dark ironies are to be found beneath the fragile quietude at this film's surface. This isn't just applicable to Japan, and this realization gives this film a sad sting that stuck with me long after the movie was over. Ozu's famous 'look' - no closeups, no crane shots, a still camera fixed at 3 1/2 feet off the floor or ground also gives this film an unforgettable grace and beauty. DVD please???

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11 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
Ozu's most visually beautiful film - a masterpiece, 10 September 2009
Author: Flak_Magnet from United States

Ozu's final film is his most visually beautiful, and among his most somber. Aside from "Tokyo Story," "Late Spring" and "A Story of Floating Weeds," this is my favorite Ozu film. There are several stories at work in this movie, but the primary involves a middle-aged father whose adult daughter is reluctant to marry. Long detached from her, the father realizes, only too late, that with her departure, goes the happiest chapter of his life. Ozu's style is extremely refined at this point, and "An Autumn Afternoon" shows the director at the height of his artistic prowess. As such, this movie is a terrific introduction to Ozu, and it is a rewarding farewell for fans. Visually speaking, this one is a stunner, and every frame of the movie is a stand-alone composition. Many of the Ozu stock company make appearances, including Chishu Ryu and Keiji Sada, as well as some new faces, such as Kyoko Kishida from "Woman in the Dunes." The story is a classic Ozu meditation on family, marriage, and nostalgia, and the ending is among his most remorseful. If you appreciate Ozu or are just curious about this quiet master, "An Autumn Afternoon" is a great choice. This film is a serene, graceful masterpiece.

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9 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
Matchmaker Matchmaker Make Me A Match!, 19 December 2003
10/10
Author: eva25at from Vienna, Austria

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

(Contains spoilers)

Mr. Hirayama (Chishu Ryu) congratulates his secretary on her wedding and wishes another one the same domestic bliss. But when the subject of his own daughter's marriage is touched - he is in no hurry. She is still a child. One of his friends, Mr. Kawai, sets him right: Michiko is 24. He knows the right suitor, a young doctor, and offers to act as a matchmaker. The night is long (baseball, sake) and one of their buddies, Mr. Horie, brags of his young wife: he does not need "aid" (viagra), he claims; his wife buys just "vitamines". The others crack jokes behind his back. Old fool. I don't want to be like him.

Michiko greets her father ("You're drunk"). This beautiful girl is not the subjugated "little woman" but a proficient housekeeper on her way of becoming a shrew. And she has no intention to wait on her little brother Kazuo. She shrugs Mr. Kawai's warning that she may become an old maid off. Hirayama's class comrades nearly exhibit Mr. Sakuma, their old math teacher, as warning of what can become of a man who neglected the duty to marry his daughter. Sakuma's daughter, Tomoko, restrains herself and remains polite when her father's former pupils deliver the staggering old man in his miserable noodle-kitchen. It's only after they left that this faded and careworn woman allows herself to cry...

Koichi, Michikos elder brother, is married and his wife Akiko is just as self-assured as her sister in law. When he bosses her around she bosses him back. Koichi touched his father for 50 000 yen - for a washing-machine - and for golf-clubs his wife will not allow him to keep ("golf is a luxury for a little clerk like you"). He is sulking... This evening, Hirayama asks his daughter if she does not want to marry. He feels that he has taken advantage of her. She remains obstinate, claims that she is contented with her life, does not want to "talk about it". Hirayama asks his younger son if he "has somebody". Yes, Kazuo replies, and he suspects that his sister "has somebody" too.

Michiko visits Koichi and Akiko. Her father's matchmaking is getting on her nerves, although she is not disinclined to marry: She finds one of Koichi's colleagues, Mr. Miura, sympathetic...With his father's approval Koichi puts out a feeler: "Do you like to marry?" - Too late! Mr. Miura was, in fact, interested, but thought that Michiko was not interested - and now he has another sweetheart. Michiko keeps her countenance when her father and her brother break the news gently to her. She cries only in secret. But there is still hope: Mr. Kawai's candidate, the young doctor...Too late again! The union to another girl is as good as settled...April Fool! Mr. Kawai just couldn't resist this little joke... ...And then the wedding does take place. Michiko is a beautiful bride and Hirayama a proud father who wishes his daughter: "Be happy!". He does not move in with Koichi and Akiko because "The young should be together. The old should not trouble them." He will stay home with his younger son Kazuo. He gets drunk in a bar. People ask him if he comes from a funeral ("something like that" he replies). Kazuo awaits his father: "Don't drink!" "Go to bed!" he orders his old man. Mr. Hirayama sits on a chair and looks at his empty home. Now he is truly alone.

Masterpiece - what a hackneyed word, but how else should I describe Ozu's work? Neither did he make use of classic sources (like Kurozawa) nor did he invent the "eastern". His protagonists face just everybody's problems. How to grow up and find happiness without angering your parents, how to grow old and survive it without angering your children...His description of the generation gap is especially strong. How did other directors capture the moment when a parent has just one duty: let go. Different perhaps; better is impossible. Ozu is as good as Wilder when mixing drama with comedy. Hirayama meets an old wartime comrade in a bar. They deplore that the young generation is influenced by american culture. What if Japan has won the war? ("We'd be sitting in New York. The americans would wear japanese hairdos. And they would play the shamisen while chewing gum"). Discussions about aphrodisiacs and contraceptives were probably too "adult" for western audiences of the time, but sometimes dissonant parts amount to a harmonious total. 10/10

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4 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Ozu's Valedictory Film Seems a Most Fitting Summation of His Legendary Career, 31 October 2008
9/10
Author: Ed Uyeshima from San Francisco, CA, USA

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

The last work from revered filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu is a surprising delight, at once a summation of the family dramas that dominated his postwar career and a celebration of his quiet artistry. It's a movie that doesn't call attention to itself and even goes as far as lifting entire sequences from his previous films. At the same time, this 1962 drama is not so much a re-telling of the same stories (co-written with longtime collaborator Kôgo Noda) as it is a re-evaluation of the same dramatic themes that inform the director's work since "Late Spring", his 1949 classic to which this film bears the strongest resemblance. Ozu aficionados will find all his familiar, idiosyncratic touches here - the elliptical narrative, the observational view of the characters from the outside, the thoughtfully composed shots, and the stationary, slightly above-ground camera angles to replicate the perspective of someone sitting on a tatami mat. Moreover, Ozu liked using the same actors over and over again, so it comes a no surprise that frequent Ozu actor Chishu Ryu stars in the director's valedictory film.

The character-rich plot centers on middle-aged businessman Shuhei Hirayama who lives with his 24-year-old daughter Michiko and younger son Kazuo. In the absence of a mother, Michiko takes care of the wifely responsibilities for her father and brother and hasn't considered marriage in the near term even though Japanese tradition would label her an old maid soon enough. Hirayama's old friend Kawai has an eligible bachelor in mind to connect with Michiko, but her heart belongs to someone else who is unaware of her interest. Hirayama thinks there is no hurry to marry his daughter off until he sees his old middle schoolteacher comically nicknamed "The Gourd" by his old classmates. Hirayama and Kawai take the wizened man home in a drunken state after a night of sake and beer. They see that he now owns a run-down noodle shop and lives with his daughter, an aging spinster who reveals hints of her sad fate. As Hirayama forges ahead with his daughter's prospect, his older son Koichi struggles to live within his modest means with a wife who nags him about his spendthrift ways. He needs to borrow money from his father to buy a new refrigerator but wants to buy a set of used MacGregor golf clubs against his wife's objections. The plot threads eventually come together when Michiko does marry leaving Hirayama to share household responsibilities with Kazuo.

What first catches your eye is Ozu's vivid use of color, especially a bold use of red in both defining and transitional shots. The other aspect is tonal as the director has moved from the barely concealed emotionalism of his early works to a certain ruefulness in his last film. The last few minutes cover the exact same dramatic finale of "Late Spring", but this time, it doesn't seem nearly as tragic, evoking a slightly melancholic resignation. The stoic Ryu plays the role of the widowed father in both films, this time given an intriguing backstory as an officer in the Imperial Navy during World War II. This leads to my favorite scene at a bar where Hirayama runs into a former sailor under his command (played with boisterous relish by Kurosawa favorite Daisuke Kato) and speculate what Japan would be like had they won the war. Played by Kyôko Kishida, the bar hostess will be familiar to art-house connoisseurs for the title role in Hiroshi Teshigahara's classic "Woman in the Dunes". Another familiar face is Haruko Sugimura (the selfish older daughter in "Tokyo Story") whose cameo as the schoolteacher's spinster daughter is heartbreaking. Eijiro Tonô (Tora! Tora! Tora!") cuts an effectively pitiable figure as her father.

Shima Iwashita plays Michiko with snippy plaintiveness, effective enough but a far cry from the luminous Setsuko Hara in the earlier film (her reassuring presence is missed here). Keiji Sada (who sadly died in a car crash soon after this film was made) and Mariko Okada etch a revealing postwar portrait of a young Japanese couple struggling to make ends meet in their small apartment. Compared to previous Ozu classics released by the Criterion Collection, the extras on this 2008 release are sparse and limited to one disc. First, there is a highly informative commentary track by author David Bordwell ("Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema"). The second is a fifteen-minute excerpt from a 1978 French TV special, "Yasujiro Ozu and The Taste of Saki" just as France was discovering his work. Critics Michel Ciment and Georges Perec lend their rather pretentious perspectives. Two theatrical trailers round out the disc extras. There is also a 28-page booklet about the film's production included in the slipcase.

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3 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Autumn sonata, 31 December 2010
8/10
Author: jotix100 from New York

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Yasuhiro Ozu brilliant film career ended with this elegiac look at a man, Shuhei Hirayama, who has seen his life pass him by without ever doing much about it. We meet the man, whose somewhat pleasant routine consists in preparing to go to a job that has given him a comfortable existence. At home, Hirayama is living with his unmarried daughter, Michiko, whose single status weighs heavily on him, after all, he is definitely grown old. Michiko's happiness is looked upon with his father's eyes, but at the same time, he will soon be by himself in an empty house with little, or no prospect for much. He realizes he cannot retain his daughter to keep the house forever.

Among his friends, there is one dear old man, his old teacher, now reduced to working in his own noodle shop. When Hirayama and his friends meet for regular dinners they have a great time, as it is the custom of Japanese men to meet alone for entertaining. The old teacher is feted, but the man cannot hold his liquor. Hirayama takes the man home. There, he witnesses the old man's spinster daughter trying to cope with her father. It is at this point that Hirayama looks into the future and decides he must find a good prospect for Michiko.

Ozu's themes of old versus new is at the center of the story. As the film begins we watch blue and red smoke stacks against blue skies, something that reminds us of modern paintings. Ozu's themes always revolved about family, tradition and the changing times, as in this film, his swansong to the cinema. The master evidently enjoyed working with Chichu Ryu, the lead actor in some of his best movies. Here, Mr. Ryu shows why the director liked him so much. The actor does a wonderful job as the man facing an uncertain future, but conscious enough of the happiness of the rest of his family.

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3 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Let This Movie Gently Win You Over, 28 January 2010
8/10
Author: madcardinal from Connecticut, United States

A sensitive film which observes a widower and his family as they navigate through their days and nights in post-WWII Japan, a place where etiquette and custom are still important and individuality counts for less than it does in the U.S.A. We witness a world where unmarried women are expected to take care of their partner-less fathers and brothers.

This film features excellent use of color, especially the placement of yellows and reds.

"An Autumn Afternoon" grows on you as you slowly, steadily work your way into the lives of Mr. Hirayama and his family; it's as if the camera were a guest gaining the acceptance of the major characters.

Will Mr. Hirayama come upon his own personal autumn afternoon - a state of philosophical clarity where he can discern things soberly and make a wise and compassionate decision?

A must-see for devotees of Japanese cinema, director Ozu, and those who love quiet, gentle films.

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3 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
An updated version of BANSHUN, 4 June 2009
9/10
Author: planktonrules from Bradenton, Florida

My favorite Yasujiro Ozu film is BANSHUN. And so, as I sat watching SANMA NO AJI, I quickly realized that this film is essentially a retooling of BANSHUN. Both films are about a devoted daughter living quite happily with her widower father. The father, however, realizes that the daughter is giving up a lot, so it's his goal to get her out and married for her own good. There are some differences, though, in the films. In SANMA NO AJI, it's not just the father but also the young lady's employer who sees a need for her to marry. In addition to taking care of her father, there also is a younger brother in the home. Still, it is essentially the same story with a few twists--and in color.

It's also highly reminiscent of many of the mid to late Ozu films in a variety of ways. Like his usual style, the camera is stationary and often is at floor level--with cuts instead of closeups. You may not notice this at first, but it's clearly the director's trademark. In addition, the film has the typical slow and gentle pace and is about the conflicts between modern Japanese life and tradition. In this sense, there's not a lot that's too new about the film other than a light and modern (for 1962) soundtrack--very bouncy yet gentle.

As for the film, the father (Shuhei) has a pretty nice life. He has a nice job, often goes out with friends to drink and Michiko (the daughter) takes care of his needs at home. However, as the film progresses he notices in other people's relationships that something is missing. In particular, meeting with an old school teacher from 40 years ago is a wake-up, as this old man also lives with his unmarried daughter--and his life is a bit pathetic. Shuhei is afraid that in later years, his and his daughter will have a similar relationship. So, he and his married son go about trying to arrange a marriage for Michiko--who does want to marry, though judging by her outward appearance and insistence that she wants to stay home and take care of her father, you's never know it.

Overall, it's an incredibly slow but satisfying film and a nice end to Ozu's career, as it is his last film. Well worth seeing and full of lovely and realistic vignettes. For those who are looking for action and excitement, you may not like this film. For those who can appreciate a slower and more deliberately paced film, this is hard to beat. A lovely portrait of life in Japan circa 1962.

By the way, is it me or did those people in the film really drink a lot?! Wow!

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