Ozu made his masterpiece "Late Spring" in 1949 and it dealt with a subject very close to his heart, family and in particular the bond between father and daughter. It was a theme he was to return to often and yet perhaps never more affectingly as here, (indeed, his final film, "An Autumn Afternoon", was really a remake of "Late Spring"). It was also the first film in what came to be known as 'the Noriko trilogy', the others being "Early Summer" and "Tokyo Story", and as the daughter Noriko, who refuses to get married so as to stay with her ageing father, Setsuko Hara gives a luminous performance as does Chishu Ryu as her father. These were performers Ozu worked with often and he knew them, and the characters they played, intimately.
It's a deeply moving film, very simply told and it cemented Ozu's reputation as one of cinema's greatest directors. (it's frequently listed among the best films ever made), and there are few films about family to touch it. Ozu's genius was his ability to use a very simple surface palette to disguise a wealth of emotions; love, jealousy, loneliness are handled with slightest of touches. How different this is from the way an American director might have dealt with the same material. For Ozu, there are no 'happy endings'; life really is disappointing and everything is tinged with sadness. Heartbreaking but in the most beautiful of ways.
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