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Japan · 1958
1h 58m
Director Yasujirō Ozu
Starring Shin Saburi, Kinuyo Tanaka, Ineko Arima, Yoshiko Kuga
Genre Comedy, Drama
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A young woman disappoints her traditional father by declining arranged marriage and choosing her spouse. When her father refuses to attend the wedding in hopes that his daughter will call it off, his wife tries to convince him to accept the marriage, which will go forward with or without his approval.
As in LATE SPRING (1949), Ozu eschews formula standards of dramatic convention by omitting the actual scene of the wedding ceremony, choosing instead to focus on its planning and consequences. The result is poignant and moving, and if EQUINOX FLOWER is not one of Ozu's greatest films, it's still a gentle and touching late work from this master.
This 1958 film by Yasujiro Ozu (his first in color) is gentle, spare, and ultimately elusive, in a quietly satisfying way. [07 May 2009, p.28]
Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas
Ozu uses his austere style to express warmth, occasional humor and and a spirit of reconciliation; as usual, his repeated shots of people crossing a corridor suggest the passage through life. [19 Jan 1990, p.F10]
Ozu's first film in colour, and he uses it sparingly. Subdued dress sense and domestic interiors are set against splashes of significant red (look out for the kettle!), representing the amaryllis which blooms around the autumn equinox - the perfect image for a film about transition.
The New York Times by Vincent Canby
Equinox Flower—a particularly inscrutable title even for this great Japanese director—is one of Ozu's least dark comedies, which is not to say that it's carefree, but, rather, that it's gentle and amused in the way that it acknowledges time's passage, the changing of values and the adjustments that must be made between generations.
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