|
New movie reviews, DVD reviews, interviews, and all things film.
Home | Archive | About | Blog | Lists | Links | E-mail me | Sign up for my weekly newsletter! | Safe House *** The Vow **1/2 The Innkeepers ***1/2 The Woman in Black *** The Grey *** Man on a Ledge *** Underworld Awakening ** Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos *** Haywire *** Beauty and the Beast **** Contraband *** The Divide * Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy **** The Devil Inside ** The Iron Lady ** A Separation *** Pariah ***1/2 Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close *** The Darkest Hour ** More Essential Killing Lady and the Tramp La Jetée Sans Soleil Story of a Love Affair 3 A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas 2011: The Year's Best DVDs and Blu-Rays More Year's Best DVDs and Blu-Rays San Francisco Film Critics Circle Awards Interview: Steve McQueen and Michael Fassbender Interview: Simon Curtis Interview: Werner Herzog Interview: John Cho Interview: Roland Emmerich Interview: Stephen Bishop on Moneyball Interview: Nick Swardson Interview: Lynn Hershman Leeson Interview: Lone Scherfig Interview: Jesse Eisenberg & Aziz Ansari Interview: Wayne Wang Interview: Andre Ovredal on 'Trollhunter' Interview: Ewan McGregor & Mike Mills Interview: Kelly Reichardt (Examiner link) The 54th San Francisco International Film Festival - 2011 Coverage Interview: Emma Roberts Rainn Wilson & James Gunn (Examiner link) Interview: Tom McCarthy Interview: Abigail Breslin (Examiner link) 2010: The Year's Best Films 2010: The Year's Best DVDs & Blu-Rays Interview: Sofia Coppola Interview: George A. Romero The Decade's Ten Best Films: 2000-2009 My Top 100 Films [Updated] My Top 60 Directors [Updated] Christmas Movies Essential Halloween & Horror Movies Cult Movies Actress Interview Gallery More Features and Interviews Not Quite a Memoir: Of Films, Books, the World, by Judy Stone James Agee: The Library of America Collection, by James Agee Just Making Movies, by Ronald L. Davis More Books Reviews A-C Reviews D-F Reviews G-J Reviews K-M Reviews N-Q Reviews R-T Reviews U-Z The online film magazine Combustible Celluloid offers new movie reviews, DVD reviews, film reviews, actor interviews, actress interviews, director interviews, film books and all things cinema related for the thoughtful and passionate. Online for ten years! Over 3000 reviews!
© 1997-2012 Combustible Celluloid |
An Autumn Afternoon (1962)Rating: 4 Stars (out of 4)Seeing RedBy Jeffrey M. Anderson Buy An Autumn Afternoon on DVD
That said, An Autumn Afternoon, has some striking departures. It turned out to be Ozu's last film -- the director died exactly on his 60th birthday in 1963 -- but it's also a remarkable example of a "last film." It sums up a career's worth of work, while simultaneously looking ahead and coming to terms with new ideas. The film begins by eradicating the burlap backgrounds over the titles, and then using industrial images (polluting smokestacks, etc.) rather than more innocent ones, like his usual clotheslines. Shuhei Hirayama (Chishu Ryu) works in an office; outside his windows, we can glimpse more (red) smokestacks, belching smoke. Hirayama is pre-occupied with marrying off his 24 year-old office girl, but is more reluctant when it comes to his own daughter, who is the same age. Since the death of his wife, his daughter Michiko (Shima Iwashita) has been looking after him and his youngest son, Kazuo (Shinichiro Mikami). The implication is that the men would be helpless without her. (Of course, Ozu also explored this theme in the great Late Spring as well as several other works). Ozu also spends time outside this family circle, looking at Hirayama's other son, Koichi (Keiji Sada), who is married and living away from home. Koichi pouts and behaves like a spoiled child when his wife Akiko (Mariko Okada) won't let him buy a set of expensive golf clubs. One of Hirayama's drinking buddies has married a younger woman and takes pills to keep up. And a reunion with an old schoolteacher (Eijiro Tono) eventually convinces Hirayama that he must marry off Michiko, no matter what the cost. Whereas Late Spring ended with the poetic image of the father (also played by Ryu) peeling an apple, An Autumn Afternoon is more "in touch," and simply ends with the immature youngest son coaxing his drunken father into bed -- another twist on the old parent-child relationship. Perhaps more so than usual, An Autumn Afternoon considers the past in that Hirayama was once a military man. He and other veterans often discuss the war, singing fight songs and whatnot. But at one point, the idea that the Japanese losing the war was a good thing is introduced and accepted. The men also look back on their school days with a kind of regret -- and relief. Though they had fun, I think they would all agree that they're better off now. Ozu's choice to add color wasn't made lightly, it seems. Here he uses red for a punctuating effect, placing red objects in unusual spots in the frame, including foreground and background space. They all lead up to the surprising shot of Michiko in her white wedding dress, highlighted with red sashes. She turns slowly toward the camera, in perhaps the showiest shot I've ever seen in an Ozu, and the red indicates the fact that she is leaving. It's interesting to note that, unlike Late Spring, this film rarely deals directly with the father-daughter relationship. Rather, all the other, supposedly secondary characters, more or less represent the various angles and facets of their relationship, and the ways in which it could go (or not go). In that way, it's one of Ozu's richest films. DVD Details: The Criterion Collection gives us this very welcome 2008 release, which is the 15th Ozu film released on DVD in the United States (each and every one of them from Criterion). It's a little lower on quality and lighter on extras than some of the others, but it's still very much worth having. Color film is harder to preserve and restore than black-and-white, and one early scene is still noticeably damaged. David Bordwell's commentary track is a good one, more casual and conversational that we usually get from Criterion. The excerpts from a 1978 French television program with Michel Ciment are fairly interesting (he makes a great summation of Ozu's career and appeal), and the liner notes booklet is packed with good stuff. Starring: Chishu Ryu, Shima Iwashita, Shinichiro Mikami, Keiji Sada, Mariko Okada, Nobuo Nakamura, Ryuji Kita, Eijiro Tono |
| Home |
New Movies |
New DVDs & Blu-Ray |
Features |
News |
Search Reviews |
Classic Movies |
Film Books |
Gallery |
Links |
About |
Contact |