Slideshow
A HEN IN THE WIND
Japan, 1948
Directed by Yasujirō Ozu
With Kinuyo Tanaka, Shûji Sano, Chieko Murata
Approx. 84 min. 35mm/4K DCP Restoration.
In Japanese with English subtitles
With husband Shûji Sano still not back from the war, Kinuyo Tanaka realizes there’s just one way to pay her son’s crippling medical bills. Perhaps Ozu’s darkest work, with bizarre camera angles and cutting, and even violence(!) “Well, everyone has their failures” – Ozu. But still #7 in the Kinema Junpo poll.
Reviews
“The film, in any case, is suffused with a sense of defeat, but it ends with some rays of hope, however characteristically elliptical Ozu makes their expression.”
– Jonathan Rosenbaum, British Film Institute
“Presents a different side of the great Japanese director than American viewers are accustomed to seeing.”
– Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader
“A pointed moral indictment of Japan’s postwar society, this is also one of Ozu’s most emotionally charged movies.”
– Reece Pendleton, Chicago Reader