In 1923, in the province of Shinshu, Tsune Nonomiya, a widow and simple worker in a silk factory, decides to send her only son Ryosuke Nonomiya to Tokyo for a better education. Thirteen years later, she visits her son and finds that he is a poor and frustrated night-school teacher.

Foreshadowing the iconic family dramas of his late career, Yasujirô Ozu’s first sound film is a quietly tragic exploration of economic development and its social costs. An early masterpiece from the revered maestro, this elegant film measures modernity’s brutal forward march with delicate restraint.