Late Autumn Anniversary
On November 13, 1960, Yasujirô Ozu's film "Akibiyori 秋日和 (Late Autumn)" was released in Japanese cinemas. The genre of the picture is a family dramedy, traditional for Yasujirô Ozu.
For the 57-year-old classic of Japanese and world filmmaking, "Late Autumn" was the 45th full-length feature film, including silent films. True, 17 of his silent films were lost.
The film was shot from July to November 1960. The time of the film's creation coincided with a period of turbulent political activity in Japan, caused by the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security Assurances between the United States and Japan, concluded by the government of the country in January of that year. A quiet, calm film about the relationship of a widowed mother and her adult daughter, about their love for each other to self-sacrifice, against the background of stormy political passions, went almost unnoticed.
Moreover, some Japanese film critics have described "Late Autumn" as a retrograde, even reactionary picture that takes viewers away from the most important problems of their difficult time.
Perhaps it was the harsh criticism of the film from Japanese critics that led to the fact that Yasujiro Ozu's "Late Autumn", being submitted for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, was not nominated. However, probably, the chances of winning this award, even if it were among the nominees, would be small, since the number of applicants included, in particular, "Jungfrukällan (The Virgin Spring)" by Ingmar Bergman and "La vérité (The Truth)" by Henri-Georges Clouzot.
Perhaps the Academy's refusal to include Yasujirô Ozu's film as an Academy Award nominee caused the film's lack of invitations to European film festivals. But at the 1961 Asia Pacific Film Festival, "Late Autumn" won three awards, including Best Picture. These awards are a testament to Asian critics and filmmakers who have come to understand that Yasujirô Ozu's "Late Autumn" is very subtly and very skillfully portraying the deep contradictions between old Japanese traditions and the growing presence of modern Western views permeating Japanese culture.
For a long time, cinemas in Europe and the United States were deprived of the opportunity to show the film "Late Autumn". Only in the mid-70s, the picture of Yasujiro Ozu "reached" moviegoers in Europe and America. Soviet moviegoers were able to see this film only with the beginning of perestroika.
Yasujirô Ozu's film "Late Autumn" was received very warmly by film critics in Europe and the United States. Polish film critic specializing in Asian cinema, Olek Młyński, described this picture as follows: "ЭThis bittersweet comedy about characters not being able to communicate and immensely complicating a rather simple dilemma has a sweep of a novel, whilst remaining a touching and intimate melodrama."
David Blakeslee, a film critic from the Criterion Collection team, wrote in his review: "While it’s true that Ozu doesn’t really break new ground here, the gratification comes from watching a master refine his art to the point of sublime near-perfection as he clarifies his vision, discovering new heights of purity that he’s able to share with those of us who’ve followed along with the development of his craft up to this point."
The perception of Yasujirô Ozu's film "Late Autumn" by modern moviegoers is characterized by the following figures. 58% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users gave this film ratings from 8 to 10. Thanks to this indicator and taking into account the above, the rating of Yasujirô Ozu's film "Late Autumn" according to FilmGourmand's version was 7,940, which allowed it to take 811th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
