“Is this my favourite of the works of the great minimalist Ozu? You can summarise the plot of Late Spring in a couple of lines: the professor (Chishū Ryū) lives happily with his daughter Noriko; her aunt announces Noriko must marry before she is too old; the professor pretends he will marry so Noriko will not feel guilty about leaving him on his own. She marries. Even this is enough to understand that Ozu’s preoccupation with the precarity of happiness frames his greatest works. Just a glance – the professor’s at Mrs Miwa (Miyake Kuniko) during the Noh performance he attends with Noriko (Hara Setsuko) – is enough for a swirl of connections to run through Noriko’s mind. Ozu, who insisted on working over and over again with the same actors, knows that he need do nothing other than let his camera rest on Hara’s face and the slightest change of expression will tell us more than any words.” Ruth Barton
“I’m always startled when Tokyo Story (1953) gets named the ‘greatest Asian film’ when Ozu himself made one that strikes me as better – briefer, richer and more profoundly moving.” John Powers
“If I could pack Late Spring, Tokyo Story and Good Morning (1959) into one No. 1 spot, I would, but the first is the one I keep coming back to – it seems to hover so closely to the rhythms and regrets of ordinary life.” Ty Burr
“Deeply poignant and tender, yet restrained, dignified, almost stoic, it is narrated in Ozu’s typically minimalist style. Although it is difficult to pick just one from his extraordinary body of work, Late Spring was my first encounter with Ozu.” Nandana Bose
“A search for the balance between the part and the whole, at once profoundly sad and upliftingly heartwarming.” Sam Ho
