September 1, 2023/ 7:30 PM - 12:00 PM

Yasujirō Ozu in Color: The Final Six Films

Introduction by Matt Severson, Director, Margaret Herrick Library

Yasujirō Ozu’s first color film builds on the powerful themes from his unparalleled masterpiece Tokyo Story (1953) to conjure deep empathy for youth in postwar Japan. Based on the novel by Japanese author Ton Satomi, the film follows a rich businessman (Shin Saburi) as he learns, to his dismay, that his daughter (Ineko Arima) will marry a man he’s never met. Though the flower of the title, the higanbana, implies a bad omen, Ozu’s cheerful balance between depicting a father's frustration and honoring the dignity of the younger generation foregrounds the filmmaker’s understanding of youth, a progressive theme that carries through his final six films.

DIRECTED BY: Yasujirō Ozu. WRITTEN BY: Yasujirō Ozu, Kōgo Noda. WITH: Shin Saburi, Ineko Arima, Kinuyo Tanaka, Teiji Takahashi. 1958. 118 min. Japan. Color. Japanese. 35mm.

Academy Museum film programming generously funded by the Richard Roth Foundation.

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