Film Forum

長屋紳士録 (Nagaya shinshiroku)

Director Yasujirô Ozu
Cast Chôko Iida, Chishû Ryû, Takeshi Sakamoto
Screenplay Yasujirô Ozu, Tadao Ikeda | Cinematography Yûharu Atsuta
1947 | Japan | 35mm | approx. 72 min. | In Japanese with English subtitles

Immediately post-war, widowed shopkeeper Chôko Iida gets saddled with a lice-ridden, silently expressionless homeless boy, then begins scheming to dump him herself, once foiled by the boy’s head-down run-up to the beach. But… (Chishû Ryû’s party recitation is a memorable highlight.)

Reviews

“One of Ozu’s most perfect domestic comedies.”
– Donald Richie

“Ozu deflects the sentimental thrust of the material by taking it all in through his passive, profoundly accepting point of view.”
– Dave Kehr

“A deceptively simple story in the manner typical of the most powerful of his films.”
– Michael Price, Senses of Cinema