Rent Tokyo Twilight (1957)

Masterful - Tokyo Twilight review by sb

FILM & REVIEW Over the last few years I have been working my way through the films of Yasujro Ozu who makes wonderfully detailed films about Japanese families in their various permutations and this is t he final one I hadn’t seen. It’s by far his darkest bleakest film - regular actor Rye plays the father on two daughters the eldest Takako (Hara) has left her husband taking her daughter with her and Akiko (Arema) who never seems to settle to anything. There was a Mother who is never talked about but one day Akiko meets a lady who runs a mahyong parlour who seems to know a lot about the family and Takako works out who she really is. She tries to hide the truth from Akiko but the plan goes wrong and sets in motion a series of events that ends in tragedy. As always the performances are subtle and understated and Ozu uses his trademark static camera as a lens through which the audience are held as the inevitable events unfold. He really was a master filmmaker - 4/5