Late Ozu: Eclipse From The Criterion Collection

Late Ozu: Eclipse From The Criterion Collection

Master filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu directed fifty-three features films over the course of his long career. Yet it was in the final decade of his life, his "old master" phase, that he entered his artistic prime. Centered more than ever on the modern sensibilities of the younger generation, these delicate family dramas are marked by an exquisite formal elegance and an emotional sensitivity toward birth and death, love and marriage, and all the accompanying joys and loneliness. Along with such better-known films as Floating Weeds and An Autumn Afternoon, these five works illustrate the worldly wisdom of one of cinema's great artists at the height of his powers.

Early Spring

A salaryman in postwar Tokyo has an affair with an officemate in this moving portrait of a fragile marriage.

Tokyo Twilight

In the dead of winter, past and present traumas afflict two sisters and their aging father in this, one of Ozu's most heartbreaking and powerful works.

Equinox Flower

In Ozu's splendid first color film, a stubborn businessman who disapproves of his daughter's fiance must learn to embrace modern romance.

Late Autumn

Ozu regular Setsuko Hara, once the marrying child in Late Spring, becomes the parent in this poignant tale of the bonds between mother and daughter.

The End Of Summer

Ozu's penultimate film tells the story of three sisters who are stunned to discover that their aging father is spending time with his old mistress.