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An Autumn Afternoon

Play trailer Poster for An Autumn Afternoon Released Nov 18, 1962 1h 55m Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
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95% Tomatometer 21 Reviews 91% Popcornmeter 1,000+ Ratings
In the wake of his wife's death, aging Shuhei Hirayama (Chishu Ryu) struggles to maintain balanced relationships with his three children. He tends to spoil his eldest, the happily married Kazuo (Shinichiro Mikami), who spends more of his father's money than his own. The middle child, 24-year-old Michiko (Shima Iwashita), is looking for love herself, but feels obligated to run Shuhei's household and care for his youngest child, teenaged Koichi (Keiji Sada), who can't connect with his father.

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An Autumn Afternoon

Critics Reviews

View All (21) Critics Reviews
Judith Crist New York Magazine/Vulture No Hitchcock McGuffin, no Sleuth-like turnabout can surpass the suspense that Ozu builds slowly and subtly to crisis and climax. Jun 13, 2020 Full Review Geoff Andrew Sight & Sound While An Autumn Afternoon is in so many ways wholly typical of Ozu, it's also a very distinct variation, following beautifully from its predecessors. May 20, 2014 Full Review Kate Muir Times (UK) An Autumn Afternoon by the great Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu is as exquisite and delicate as his other works, but has the added poignancy of being his last film. Rated: 5/5 May 20, 2014 Full Review Nicholas Bell IONCINEMA.com This close relationship between father and daughter faced with an inevitable departure makes for some finely understated melancholy undercurrents. Rated: 3.5/5 Oct 29, 2020 Full Review Michael E. Grost Classic Film and Television Rich drama about quiet male bonding has visual creativity. Dec 3, 2016 Full Review Philip Kemp Total Film Mellow and rich in ironic humour, the film carries an undertow of gentle melancholy; as so often with Ozu, its ultimate message is that loneliness is the human condition. Rated: 5/5 May 13, 2014 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

View All (82) audience reviews
Audience Member Masterpiece! Ozu cannot be stopped! One of the best of the best! I believe his last movie was one of his best! Rated 5 out of 5 stars 05/11/24 Full Review daniel k Paul Rudd was not in this movie Rated 1 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Audience Member Although not his best known work, Ozu's "An Autumn Afternoon" is undoubtedly my personal favorite. In Ozu's characteristically quiet and leisurely way, the film offers a panorama of post-war Japanese life that is stunningly inclusive of both the uniquely cultural struggles inherent in that particular time and place as well as the universal pains, burdens and disappointments of daily life that remain relevant to this day. Yet despite the inherent sadness at its core, the sheer, unadorned honesty of the work yields numerous moments that evoke refreshing smiles of recognition as well as outright laughter from the engaged viewer. Underlying it all, the wistful recurrent melody of the film's score generates a stoic acceptance of life's struggles that amounts to a form of necessary resilience in the face of personal upheaval. The film evokes nothing less than a portrait of life that cuts to the core of our innermost afflictions, acknowledging in the process the sobering reality of our inherent isolation from one another. I find myself returning to "An Autumn Afternoon" when in need of a friend who identifies with my pains, and am always enriched by Ozu's heartfelt testament that my own pain is nothing less than the pain of the human condition. This is not a film to deaden the soul with heavy themes of existential distress, but to lighten it with its compassionate empathy for everyone across all walks of life. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/14/23 Full Review dave s Yasujiro Ozu's final film, An Autumn Afternoon, tells the story of Shuhei Hirayama and his relationships with his three children. Like most of Ozu's films, it's the story of how we manage to function within these relationships and our impact on those within our circle of family and friends. Presented in Ozu's unique style (stationary camera shooting the action from low angles with no zooms, pans, tracking shots, etc), the story meanders a bit in the early going but the payoff at the end is worth the journey. While An Autumn Afternoon may not be on par with some of his earlier efforts, pretty much any film by Ozu is worth watching. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review William L Ozu's got me tearing up on a Wednesday evening. For a film so slowly paced and devoid of excitement, An Autumn Afternoon hits you hard. Ozu has always presented an incredibly resonant and empathetic depiction of life - as an assembly of quiet moments. Because, at the end of the day, that is what life is; it's not an endless stream of triumphant successes, emotional breakthroughs, or terrible crises, but an inevitable, relentless march through what is often considered tedium. Characters walk the line between dedication to traditionalism as a result of their own upbringing, or modernity with the changes they note in the world around them, but these conflicts are not characterized by violent shouting matches or grand gestures, but by ordinary conversations that are imbued with a sense of awkwardness and a lack of confidence. Underneath it all is this intense humanism, as Ryū's Shūhei, in consideration of his daughter's well-being, the expectations of society, and the suggestions of others, finds himself still devastated by the departure of his daughter, in a moment of unusually sharp emotion for a director that built much of his films on muted characterizations - seeing that final shot in proper context, as the last of Ozu's career, just makes it more heartbreaking, as if all of his subdued moments were leading up to this one moment of unvarnished feeling. What a film. What a way to end a career. (4.5/5) Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 06/17/21 Full Review Audience Member The movie is really not my cup of tea. It is very hard to watch this work of art because it causes boredom. If you want to watch it, first consult with movie buffs! Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 02/13/23 Full Review Read all reviews
An Autumn Afternoon

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Cast & Crew

Movie Info

Synopsis In the wake of his wife's death, aging Shuhei Hirayama (Chishu Ryu) struggles to maintain balanced relationships with his three children. He tends to spoil his eldest, the happily married Kazuo (Shinichiro Mikami), who spends more of his father's money than his own. The middle child, 24-year-old Michiko (Shima Iwashita), is looking for love herself, but feels obligated to run Shuhei's household and care for his youngest child, teenaged Koichi (Keiji Sada), who can't connect with his father.
Director
Yasujirô Ozu
Producer
Shizuo Yamanouchi
Distributor
New Yorker Films
Production Co
Shochiku Company
Genre
Drama
Original Language
Japanese
Release Date (Theaters)
Nov 18, 1962, Original
Release Date (Streaming)
Mar 20, 2017
Runtime
1h 55m
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