Review by futures-1

"Late Spring" (Japanese, 1949): Every time I see another Yasujiro Ozu film, I am more amazed and further impressed. As a director, he was a master of understated elegance. Think of him as a moving wood block print, or an extended Haiku poem. His images, symbols, photography, composition, editing, dialog, story… they're all controlled to a masterful degree, and patiently lead you from one point to another. "Late Sprint" is the story about an older daughter who has never left her father. She is completely satisfied to stay at home caring for him (the mother died many years earlier). Everyone is concerned about her, applies pressure, and she resists. The father realizes it is he alone who might convince her to enter Life on new terms. Do NOT take Ozu's landscapes and city scenes as mere non-story scenery. Instead, watch for them to represent current conditions, emotions, and truths.