"Akibiyori" is usually translated as "late autumn", but a more accurate translation would be "a clear autumn day", one of those Indian summer days in Japan with perfectly blue skies and pleasantly cool temperatures. The movie is a comedy of manners about the sunny side of the autumn of life.
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At the center of the movie is Hara Setsuko, who appears in many of Ozu Yasujiro's films. She plays Akiko, a young widow who at forty still looks as beautiful as her twenty-year-old daughter Ayako (Tsukasa Yoko). As in Late Spring, of which this is a remake, Ayako has had the opportunity to marry, but she prefers to stay at home with her mother, who would otherwise be lonely. When three friends of Ayako's deceased father (one of them is Saburi Shin as businessman Mamiya Soichi) present her with marriage opportunities from their network, Akiko supports them because she doesn't want her daughter to sacrifice herself. When Ayako still refuses, the friends decide that the only solution is for Akiko to remarry first. They themselves have been in love with Akiko since their youth, so this should be no problem... except that Ayako gets angry with her mother when she hears a rumor about the remarriage plan (of which Akiko is completely innocent). In the end, things go as they must: Ayako marries a promising young man, a subordinate of Mr. Mamiya, and Akiko stays behind, alone.
It should be mentioned that the successful suitor of Ayako is played by Sada Keiji. Okada Mariko has an interesting role as Ayako's friend Yukiko. She is a lively, vivacious personality and a "modern Japanese" of the early sixties - she even sticks out her tongue! Yukiko also has an interesting role in the plot, as she "punishes" the three middle-aged friends for the trick they played on Ayako and Akiko by luring them to a sushi bar (her father's, but she doesn't tell them) and then making them order and pay for expensive omakese dishes (the chef's choice) and lots of sake.
This was Ozu's third color film and one of his last. The colors are mostly blues, appropriate for the cool autumn day. The locations of the movie are the houses of the characters, especially Akiko's; various restaurants and bars; and Mr. Mamiya's office - it is a private office, but apparently in a large corporation in Tokyo, and friends and relatives just drop in, which would be unthinkable in later times!) We often see the three middle-aged friends like little boys, making their mischievous plans together. There is also a trip to the Ikaho hot springs, where the reconciliation between mother and daughter takes place.
Akibiyori is an elegiac yet humorous movie. Ozu wanted to make people feel the innate sadness of life without resorting to (melo)drama or appealing to the emotions. He succeeded wonderfully in this movie.
Some notes:
- Ozu's films are great resources for students of Japanese: the dialogues have not aged and are still living Japanese, and they are spoken slowly and clearly.
- Ozu has often been called "quintessentially Japanese", for example in his general restraint, or technically in his low camera angles. But in reality, "Ozu is Ozu" - for example, other Japanese films of the same period can be uninhibited tearjerkers; and if Ozu's camera angles were so quintessentially Japanese, why is he the only one to use them?
- On the other hand, the characters he shows us are realistic, everyday Japanese. His films could be used as illustrations for intercultural understanding (e.g., nonverbality or indirect communication). Although Japan has changed in the last 50 years and is now much more culturally mixed, Ozu's films show some of the original, pure types.
- 1960, the year this film was made, was a time of social unrest in Japan, including large demonstrations against a new security treaty with the U.S. and the assassination of a socialist politician by an ultra-rightist on television. But in fact, for most Japanese, life went on as normal as it does in Akibiyori.
- Rather than "domestic dramas," I would call Ozu's films "comedies of manners," as Jane Austen's novels are called. The postwar films use one of life's great rituals, "marriage," as a plot device (to the extent that there is a plot!) to show the passage of time and the changes in the lives of the protagonists.
- Hara Setsuko made over 100 films between 1935 and 1962. She worked with Naruse, Kurosawa and Inagaki, but perhaps her best films were made with Ozu (6 in all). She retired suddenly after Ozu's death and has lived quietly in Kamakura ever since. In her movies she is always smiling, but also has a very distinguished manner.
- Ozu never married and lived for his art until his death in 1962 at the age of 60. He is buried in a temple in Kamakura and his tombstone bears the Chinese character for MU, "Nothingness".
Japanese Film
It should be mentioned that the successful suitor of Ayako is played by Sada Keiji. Okada Mariko has an interesting role as Ayako's friend Yukiko. She is a lively, vivacious personality and a "modern Japanese" of the early sixties - she even sticks out her tongue! Yukiko also has an interesting role in the plot, as she "punishes" the three middle-aged friends for the trick they played on Ayako and Akiko by luring them to a sushi bar (her father's, but she doesn't tell them) and then making them order and pay for expensive omakese dishes (the chef's choice) and lots of sake.
This was Ozu's third color film and one of his last. The colors are mostly blues, appropriate for the cool autumn day. The locations of the movie are the houses of the characters, especially Akiko's; various restaurants and bars; and Mr. Mamiya's office - it is a private office, but apparently in a large corporation in Tokyo, and friends and relatives just drop in, which would be unthinkable in later times!) We often see the three middle-aged friends like little boys, making their mischievous plans together. There is also a trip to the Ikaho hot springs, where the reconciliation between mother and daughter takes place.
Akibiyori is an elegiac yet humorous movie. Ozu wanted to make people feel the innate sadness of life without resorting to (melo)drama or appealing to the emotions. He succeeded wonderfully in this movie.
Some notes:
- Ozu's films are great resources for students of Japanese: the dialogues have not aged and are still living Japanese, and they are spoken slowly and clearly.
- Ozu has often been called "quintessentially Japanese", for example in his general restraint, or technically in his low camera angles. But in reality, "Ozu is Ozu" - for example, other Japanese films of the same period can be uninhibited tearjerkers; and if Ozu's camera angles were so quintessentially Japanese, why is he the only one to use them?
- On the other hand, the characters he shows us are realistic, everyday Japanese. His films could be used as illustrations for intercultural understanding (e.g., nonverbality or indirect communication). Although Japan has changed in the last 50 years and is now much more culturally mixed, Ozu's films show some of the original, pure types.
- 1960, the year this film was made, was a time of social unrest in Japan, including large demonstrations against a new security treaty with the U.S. and the assassination of a socialist politician by an ultra-rightist on television. But in fact, for most Japanese, life went on as normal as it does in Akibiyori.
- Rather than "domestic dramas," I would call Ozu's films "comedies of manners," as Jane Austen's novels are called. The postwar films use one of life's great rituals, "marriage," as a plot device (to the extent that there is a plot!) to show the passage of time and the changes in the lives of the protagonists.
- Hara Setsuko made over 100 films between 1935 and 1962. She worked with Naruse, Kurosawa and Inagaki, but perhaps her best films were made with Ozu (6 in all). She retired suddenly after Ozu's death and has lived quietly in Kamakura ever since. In her movies she is always smiling, but also has a very distinguished manner.
- Ozu never married and lived for his art until his death in 1962 at the age of 60. He is buried in a temple in Kamakura and his tombstone bears the Chinese character for MU, "Nothingness".
Japanese Film