A heart-to-heart conversation The third consecutive remake of himself in Ozu (one of them, however, was free). The original, “Late Spring”, was released just a little ten years before “Late Autumn”, the beginning and the plot outline remained unchanged, but despite all this, the picture does not look superfluous, but on the contrary – it seems very appropriate and personally I left a stronger impression. First of all, I want to note the change of perspective: the main part of the narrative is conducted on behalf of the trio of elderly friends of the late husband Akiko Miwa (whose role was truly flawlessly performed by Setsuko Hara, who played in the original daughter), and the advantages of this decision are immediately striking. If you look closely, half of the film consists exclusively of dialogues of wise people over a glass of whiskey/sake/beer about family, women, present, past and future. We can say that Ozu communicates with the viewer almost directly, so strong is the atmosphere of intima due to its unique visual style, music and content.
The attentive viewer will notice a lot of references to the first film: the surname of the main character is the same as that of the failed bride of the hero Chishu Ryu (who is also present here, albeit in a small role), migrated from the extremely emotional final scene an episode of cleaning the apple (here it is not shown, but mentioned in conversation), the professor who married for the second time here acts as the failed groom of the heroine Hara and there are many more such trifles. It is noticeable that the tape was filmed not to replace the original, but to supplement it, and this bribes. Saying everything, of course, will never work, but a few extra words can sometimes make a huge difference. The most important thing is that the finale is unchanged, which means that the main message remains the same: there is nothing more important and stronger than family ties in life. Everyone must find the strength to create their own family, even if sometimes they have to sacrifice something. Even death cannot break the real bond.
9 out of 10