This film ventures into slightly darker psychodramatic territory than much of Ozu's work, by courageously dramatizing and exploring issues such as maternal abandonment, broken families and substance abuse.
Tokyo Twilight(東京暮色)
✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Japan · 1957
2h 21m
Director Yasujirō Ozu
Starring Setsuko Hara, Ineko Arima, Chishū Ryū, Isuzu Yamada
Genre Drama
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Two sisters discover that their mother, who they have long-believed to be dead, is in fact alive. The younger sister struggles to accept that they were abandoned as children. The two women embark on parallel paths into young adulthood as they navigate the newfound truth of their childhood.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
This rarely screened, melancholy 1957 film, Yasujiro Ozu’s last in black and white, is one of his best.
Tokyo Twilight' - [Ozu's] last black-and-white movie - takes him into unusually melodramatic territory, a dark disintegrating family saga that has broken marriages, unwanted pregnancy, gambling, prostitution, vice cops and so on. What's amazing, however, is that Ozu's narrative and visual ellipses keep sensationalism, hysteria and cliche at bay, so that it all rings true in ways undreamt of by most other directors. [10 May 2006, p.86]
Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas
Ozu cherishes tradition but accepts the inevitability of loss and change, and is as all-embracing as Jean Renoir. His people may judge and not forgive, often understandably, but as one of the greatest filmmakers he does not do so. [04 Oct 2007, p.E13]
Chicago Tribune by Michael Wilmington
Ozu is often wrongly characterized as a "soft" director preoccupied with middle-class home life, but this late film tackles extreme subject matter--spousal abuse and abortion--with unflinching skill. [18 Nov 2005, p.C6]
The New Yorker by Richard Brody
Yasujiro Ozu’s direction brings emotional depth and philosophical heft to this turbulent and grim family melodrama.
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