AllMovie

The next-to-last film of the uniquely gifted Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu, Early Autumn is a beautiful, rueful drama with comedic overtones. As in some of his other films, Ozu is concerned with change here, with the old giving way to the new and the new finding its own path in the days and years that lie ahead. Another director might take sides, but Ozu understands that change is part of nature, part of life and part of society. Some may wish to cling to the old ways, and he neither criticizes them for this nor accepts that old ways are in and of themselves the best ways. By the same token, he understands that there is much to fear as well as much to embrace in the future. All of this wrapped up in a lovely story in which what happens is not so important as how people respond to and are affected by what happens. Utilizing his famous formal compositions and almost never-moving camera, combined with his usual precise but simple edits, Ozu creates a moving, elegiac yet often immensely funny film that is full of life at the same time that it mourns the ending of life. In the central role, Ganjiro Nakamura turns in a wonderfully captivating performance, and there is excellent support as well from Setsuko Hara and Yoko Tsukasa. If Toshiro Mayuzumi's score is a bit jarring for an Ozu production, Asakazu Nakai's gorgeous faded palette cinematography more than makes up for it. Autumn is a quietly stunning work from one of the world's finest directors.