Eclipse Series 3: Late Ozu (Early Spring / Tokyo Twilight / Equinox Flower / Late Autumn / The End of Summer) (The Criterion Collection) [DVD]

Films included: EARLY SPRING Yasujiro Ozu 1956 In his first film after the commercial and critical success of Tokyo Story, Ozu examines life in postwar Japan through the eyes of a young salaryman, dissatisfied with career and marriage, who begins an affair with a flirtatious co-worker. TOKYO TWILIGHT Yasujiro Ozu 1957 One of Ozu's most piercing portraits of family strife, Tokyo Twilight follows the parallel paths of two sisters contending with an absent mother, unwanted pregnancy, and marital discord. EQUINOX FLOWER Yasujiro Ozu 1958 Later in his career, Ozu started becoming increasingly sympathetic with the younger generation, a shift that was cemented in Equinox Flower, his gorgeously detailed first color film, about an old-fashioned father and his newfangled daughter. LATE AUTUMN Yasujiro Ozu 1960 The great actress and Ozu regular Setsuko Hara plays a mother gently trying to persuade her daughter to marry in this glowing portrait of family love and conflict a reworking of Ozu's 1949 masterpiece Late Spring. THE END OF SUMMER Yasujiro Ozu 1961 The Kohayakawa family is thrown into distress when childlike father Manbei takes up with his old mistress, in one of Ozu's most deftly modulated blendings of comedy and tragedy.