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Friday, July 13, 2018

SHOSHUN / EARLY SPRING (1956)

Yasujirô Ozu’s breakout film, TOKYO STORY, only reached the international circuit after this film’s release. An unusually long three-year wait between films, apparently the result of a canceled project. (Previously, only WWII kept Ozu away from regular releases.) Something happened; but what? A career/confidence crisis after a masterpiece? Whatever it was, this film, about a new dissatisfied generation of post-war 30-somethings, ‘salary men’ at large companies, is more deliberately paced, and has an exceptionally melancholy tone. But once it comes to the boil, the story generates considerable interest & deeply felt emotion. At the center is a married couple, well-matched, but nearly oblivious to each other after about eight years and the death of their only child four years ago. It’s left the husband susceptible to an office flirtation at his serviceable, if slightly deadening clerical job, and leads to a quickly jettisoned affair. SHE taking it far more seriously than HE. Perhaps more important is the effect on his wife, just as a job opportunity comes up for the husband that would move them away from Tokyo. Ozu stirs in about a half dozen side stories on the way, all of uncommon interest, all involving in their understated fashion as played out in the perfect compositions of his equally understated film technique. Observation by a master, lightened with touching and funny elements of the human comedy. Not perhaps the best starting point for Ozu, but still unmissable.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Out on a Criterion series of ‘Late Ozu,’ the sourced print looks somewhat washed out in the early going, but improves as it goes along.

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