weak Ozu, Spoilers ahead:
(1961) End of Summer
Thanks to Criterion and their Eclipse line box set appropriately entitled “Late Ozu”, I have now seen all of Ozu’s ‘talkies’, “Early Spring” and “End of Summer” being the rarest to find with english subtitles.
End of Summer fails as a picture. It begins in a bar with one man waiting to be introduced to his friend’s sister. This is all unbeknownst to her, and as she is quite embarrassed, Akiko(played by Setsuko hara) finds a way to slide out the side door. We do not return to this strand for another 45 minutes, and even then it is brief, and later we return to it once again and nothing is really resolved either way. For the longest I was wondering what any of this had to do with the main story line, only to find out that Akiko and her brother were the children of the main character of the film, who along with his other children operate a sake brewery. But Akiko and her brother never really factor into anything else that the family does, aside from attending their father’s funeral, and nobody other than her close brother care if she remarries or not. So there is really no point in that whole plot strand being in the film, or even having any of those three characters, for that matter. The film would have worked just the same(not very well), without them. The main plot strand, revolves around an old man who tries to rekindle an old flame, while the woman doesn’t love him at all, but her and her daughter don’t mind recieving gifts from him. Nothing is really accomplished in this film, other than showing how greedy this woman and her daughter are, and how small businesses are vulnerable to big coorperations. There is no impact in this film, and the greatest moment in the film is when Chisu Ryo makes a cameo as a random farmer, who is washing vegetables with his wife in the river as they comment on the cycle of life, as the crematorium in the distance cremates a stranger who could be anyone, but happened to be the patriarch of the Kohayagawa family.
This is a weak film, lesser Ozu. 2 out of 5 stars, maybe.