An Autumn Afternoon

An Autumn Afternoon
Japan | 1962 | 113’ | DCP | Colour | Japanese | Group: B

Director: Yasujiro Ozu

In the early 60’s in Tokyo, the widower Hirayama has been living comfortably for years with his twenty-four year-old daughter Michiko and his younger son Kazuo in his house. Although Hirayama is convinced that Michiko isn’t ready for marriage, the old man changes his mind when he has long drinking sessions with his old friends and the school teacher nicknamed “The Gourd”; they learn that the teacher lives with his middle-aged daughter who has taken care of him and missed the chance to marry when young. Hirayama accepts that it is time to let Michiko go and tries to arrange a marriage for her.

Born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1903, Yasujiro Ozu is a writer/director who started his career as an assistant at Shochiku Film Company in 1923. He started directing short comedy films before turning to drama with I Was Born, But… (1932). His trademark stories – austere, powerful portraits of family, marriage and the generational divide – now compose one of the greatest oeuvres in movie history. His most famous films are Late Spring (1949), Early Summer (1951), Tokyo Story (1953), Early Spring (1956), Floating Weeds (1959) and An Autumn Afternoon (1962). He died on his 60th birthday in 1963.