Slideshow
THE END OF SUMMER
Japan, 1961
Directed by Yasujirō Ozu
With Ganjirô Nakamura, Setsuko Hara, Yôko Tsukasa
Approx. 103 min. 35mm print courtesy of Japan Foundation.
In Japanese with English subtitles
Roguishly aging sake brewer Ganjirô Nakamura can still disconcert and dismay his numerous family (“the Kohayagawa family is complicated”) — including widowed daughter-in-law Setsuko Hara — by suffering a heart attack (he signals his recovery by sauntering off, farting to the john) and by taking up with a longtime mistress even as the family business itself is slowly going down the drain.
Reviews
“All the late Ozu films are important works. THE END OF SUMMER stands out as a meditation on death, with certain shots of an extraordinary power and beauty. The scenes between the two sisters are deeply moving.”
– Eugène Green, British Film Institute
“Has a quality of luminous intelligence exceptional even in a career for which such intelligence was generally the controlling point of view.”
– Roger Greenspun, The New York Times
“One of Ozu's most deftly modulated blendings of comedy and tragedy.”
– The Criterion Collection