Late Autumn / A Mother Should Be Loved [DVD + Blu-ray] [1960]

This is a review of the BFI Blu-ray. This remastering of LATE AUTUMN (1960) supplied to BFI by Shochiku is very good but I have two technical notes. As discussed on the DVDBeaver site, the colour of the BFI presentation leans toward the green side of the colour wheel that might be native to the Fuji stock it was shot on. The same source issued on DVD by Criterion makes a colour correction to remove some of the green bias. Then, as with so many BFI discs, the grain structure is pumped up and simply looks wrong. Does anyone else find it odd that almost all the discs of restored or remastered films from the BFI share the same grain structure? You have to wonder if someone on the BFI home video tech team has a "35mm grain" filter in their pocket and simply applies that to every movie they touch regardless of film stock properties or the source of the film elements. If so, it is a case of someone's romantic perception of film grain that is technically misguided and inaccurate.Neither of these technical aspects of the BFI presentation detract from the film. You get used to the colour, and while the grain is annoying you get used to that too. LATE AUTUMN is a great film. I am a long-time student of Ozu's films dating back to a comprehensive retrospective held in New York in the late 70s/early 80s. I appreciate that for some viewiers the films are an acquired taste. But re-watching LATE AUTUMN I thought this might be the one to start with if you have never seen an Ozu film before because the film feels a little more Western than other Ozu films.The plot is more front and center, and a bit more Lubitsch, than it is in many Ozu films. Visually it is one of the most overtly graphic in all its frame compositions. (Ozu was a good graphic designer and would supply all the bar and shop graphics used int the films.) All the performances are subtle and moving, with several actors getting some deeply moving moments together and alone. And I think that is because at the heart of it, the movie is a profound study of loneliness and of the desire and choice to live alone. Because it is done with humor and spronkled with well-earned surprises, you might not see the real impact of the film coming until the very last shot, when, as with so many films by Ozu, it all comes together and it hits you. This is one aspect of Ozu's work dating back to the 30s that makes his films so consisntenly rewarding.LATE AUTUMN is a great film by a master filmmaker completely in control of his craft. The booklet that comes with the discs is very good, the inclusiuon of the exisiting fragments of A MOTHER SHOULD KNOW (1934) is a brilliant addition. I strongly recommend this edition until a better one comes along. And when you finish with LATE AUTUMN, step back in Ozu's career and get Criterion's blu-ray of LATE SPRING.

Curiously the day before watching Late Autumn I had read in Neil MacGregor's History of the World in a Hundred Objects how Japanese culture made everyday interactions an aesthetic experience, which was an insight which helped my wife and I to get more out of this film. But it will require repeated viewings till we have delved the depths of Late Autumn and the ideas which Azu so charmingly buries in the film. Subtle, clever, deep, charming, nuanced, sweet - Late Autumn is a joy, one of the ten? twenty? thirty? greatest films ever made. Don't die without having seen it.

Another entirely brilliant late Ozu film. He really is a remarkable director up there with the very best but also entirely different from the others and more different than than the others are different from each other. Enough said, just watch it. By the way these dual format Ozu's are remarkably good value because you get an older film which you probably wouldn't bother to watch otherwise but which are usually just as good as the main feature, albeit in an older way of course.

I've been replacing my Criterion Collection/Eclipse Ozu DVD's with the BFI's blu rays which feature new transfers. These are breathtaking. The textures of the fabrics and the grain of the wood paneling has never been so palpable in a home theatre. "Late Autumn" is my favorite color film by Ozu. The tones run a bit greener here than with Criterion, which unfaithfully dials up the red tones to make the image more suitable for Western eyes, I suppose. The BFI transfers are incredibly faithful to the original source. Also fantastic is the silent film "A Mother Should Be Loved" which is an improvement over the HK Panorama edition.

good for time delivery and quality

Fair price for a double disk set of a cinematic masterpiece + delivery next day. What do I need more?

To many people, the film most associated with Yasujirō Ozu is Tokyo Story. That film, a rich and moving story of the disconnection between the generations, is undoubtedly a masterpiece, but my favourite of this genius' filmography is Late Autumn. This, like Tokyo Story and many Ozu films, is about the tensions between parents and children, but whereas Tokyo Story is sombre and, at times, melancholy, Late Autumn is a lot of fun. Three men try to set up the daughter of a deceased friend; when she resists because she doesn't want to leave her mother, they try setting the mother up to.This is a beautiful film with genuine laughs but it is not a flat out comedy. There are no pratfalls, just plenty of smiles, but it is the final shot of the great Setsuko Hara that leaves an impression. She was a magnificent actor who could charm or disarm with a glance and the final moments, as she folds clothes in silence, wrenches at the heart.