Rent An Autumn Afternoon / A Hen in the Wind (1962)

Just wonderful - An Autumn Afternoon / A Hen in the Wind review by sb

FILM & REVIEW Yasujro Ozu’s final film before dying on his 60th birthday and it’s a wonderful meditation on family, ageing and loneliness. Ryo plays Shehai an elderly widower whole eldest son is married leaving him with his teenage son and unmarried daughter Michiko (IWashita) She as is as much a housekeeper to him as daughter and all his friends who have married off their own daughters keep asking him when he will sort it out. She however seems perfectly happy with things as they stand showing no desire to be married off. Things come to a head when they invite their old schoolteacher to a reunion and he turns out to be a drunken bitter old man who has kept his own daughter to look after him well past her marrying age and this gets Shehai to wonder if the same fate awaits him and Michiko… Various plans and plots are laid to get things moving along and it culminates in a really bittersweet ending. The performances are superb with Ryo bringing his customary quiet dignity to full fruition and Ozu used his customary static camera to create a real still point in a turning world. In the hands of a lesser director this could easily become dull or even dour but by keeping a lightness of touch he imbibes the film with a deeper more moving meaning and proves for the final time why he was one of the worlds greatest film makers - 5/5