Late Spring

Late Spring  (1949) is considered one of Yausujiro Ozu’s masterworks and Criterion has produced a 2 DVD set for this film. This is another family drama centered on the story of a widowed father (played by Ozu regular Chishu Ryu) determined to marry of his daughter (Setsuko Hara). Despite the images of tea ceremony and traditional houses the best friend to the daughter is a divorcee and hints at the dysfunction of the post war era that no longer reflects the traditional family structure. This new transfer has audio commentary by Richard Pena, a booklet featuring essays by Michael Atkinson and Donald Richie. The second disc is a tribute by German director Wim Wenders called Tokyo-Ga (1985). An interesting depiction that suggests to me that Tokyo hasn’t really changed that much from 1983 really.