Early Spring

An unusual subject for Ozu, white-collar adultery, handled with his customary deep observation. [28 Jan 2005, p.C2]

Feeling as his films often do, both traditional and surprisingly ahead of its time, it’s one of the best films ever made on the subject of infidelity and marriage.

Ozu's depiction of marital difficulties is hardly depressing. Instead he employs his signature warmth, sensitivity, and humor to create a touching, thoughtful film.

Ozu’s despairing view of postwar Japan looks as harshly at blind modernization as it does at decadent tradition.

This modest classic also conveys the claustrophobia of office life better than any other film I've seen.

Ozu's pessimism is deeply reactionary, and the idiosyncrasy of his methods is more interesting for its exoticism than anything else; but anyone who finds the socio-psychological problems of post-war Japan engaging will find the movie both fascinating and rather moving, simply as evidence.

This 1956 feature, a casual yet meticulously detailed reconstruction of Japan’s routinized white-collar milieu, was Yasujiro Ozu’s first film after the exquisite Tokyo Story, as well as one of his longest works.