晩春

For this month I bought Yasujirō Ozu's 1949 film Late Spring (Banshun). The film sits on my wishlist for quite sometime and decided to pick it up. Originally I intended to purchase this film in 2015 when Shochiku announced that they will be releasing the digitally remastered film on DVD and Blu-Ray. The restoration project was done by Shochiku and Cinelic.

Late Spring is highly regarded as "the definitive film of Ozu's master film making approach and language" and "one of the most perfect, most complete, and most successful studies of character ever achieved in Japanese cinema." The film is number 15 on BFI's Sight and Sound Poll - Greatest Film of All Time in 2012.

The film is based on the novel Father and Daughter (Chichi to Musume) by Kazuo Hirotsu and adapted for screenplay by Ozu and Kogo Noda. It is the first film of the "Noriko Trilogy" (other films are Early Summer (Bakushu), 1951 and Tokyo Story (Tokyo Monogatari), 1953) for whom the leading character is named Noriko (all played by Setsuko Hara). Each Noriko is unrelated and portrays Japanese single women in post war Japan. The film belongs to a genre called shomingeki or home drama which deals around working or middle class people of that era.

The story is about an unmarried and unemployed 27 year old named Noriko (Setsuko Hara) who lives with his widowed university professor father Shukichi Somiya (Chishū Ryū). The film centers around single hood, the pressures of marriage and Japanese tradition versus modernity. Remember this was post war Japan where most household had bachelors perished during the war, leaving daughters to live with their parents "late spring" in their lives.

The film also highlights Ozu's clever use of the static camera as well as his famous pillow shots. The pillow shots inspired countless Japanese films and this technique is also evident on anime like Neon Genesis Evangelion and Kareshi Kanojo no Jijō.

All in all the restoration is beautifully done. I highly recommend this release from Shochiku, although the DVD lacks any special feature or documentary, the feature film compensates it all. There's also the US release of the film under Criterion Collection that is also worth checking, and likewise it is packed with bonus materials.

Product Specification
Title: Late Spring (Banshun)
Director: Yasujirō Ozu
Cast: Chishū Ryū, Setsuko Hara, Yumeji Tsukioka, Haruko Sugimura, Hohi Aoki
Format: DVD, black & white, mono
Number of Disc: 1, Made in Japan
Publisher: Shochiku
Catalog Number: DB-0856
Release Date: 2015.12.02
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Time: 108 minutes
Subtitle: Japanese, English
Note: No special feature or documentary