For this great director's final film he chooses to revisit what is, in my opinion, his greatest work, "Late Spring". Too much so, in my opinion. It is virtually the same story...elderly widower, under peer pressure, marries his daughter off and then misses her to the point of tears. The only difference is that this time the movie is in color and the widower has two sons as well as a daughter. So I guess if you haven't seen "Late Spring" you won't be too let down but if you have, like me, and regard it, as I and many, many film goers do, as a masterpiece then there is a distinct feeling of dismay. Perhaps the biggest disappointment is that Ozu and his lifetime co scenarist Kogo Noda do not provide nearly enough father/daughter scenes so that the impact of her marriage on the dad is not sufficiently motivated. Therefore, at the end, unlike "Late Spring", we feel mild pity where we should feel heartbreak. So let's give it a B minus for those wonderful scenes of the father's old teacher, The Gourd, reduced to alcoholism and running a marginal noodle shop as well as Chishu Ryu, the quintessential Ozu actor, once more managing to invest this character with tragedy, sadness, and just a dash of humor, and finally because Ozu is my favorite foreign language director and I cannot bear to give any of his movies a C.
Review of An Autumn Afternoon
