The End of Summer (1961)

 Yasujiro Ozu's "The End of Summer"


While its ending may have been too 'on the nose,' "The End of Summer" finds Ozu focusing far more on death and the disillusion of life itself, hence the film's title. It contains one of the largest casts Ozu has ever assembled, which is really saying something for the ensemble-favored director. The attention paid evenly among its characters would perhaps normally spread the emotionality too thin. However, in the hands of Ozu, this certainly isn't a problem.

The film centers on a large family in the midst of the arranged marriages of a couple of its daughters. All the while, the patriarch is going off secretly to spend time with his 'other' family, a former mistress and her Westernized daughter. However, things get solemn when that patriarch suddenly has health complications.

Ozu seems to be reckoning with his own mortality in "The End of Summer," perhaps even dealing with his health problems of his own. His film is bleached with a tragic, despairing tone while simultaneously injecting plenty of humor and lighthearted affair. Ozu always delivers the necessary domesticity that pulls a viewer into the familiarity of universal elements. Timeless storytelling as one would call it.



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