Late Spring

One of the masterpieces by the master Ozu, Late Spring is a delicate meditation on time, love, and the inevitability of change. In post-war Japan, Noriko lives in tranquil harmony with her widowed father, a peace disturbed by social pressure for her to marry. With the contemplative and rigorous style that characterises Ozu's cinema, domestic routine gains poetic strength. Behind the minimal gestures lies a deep melancholy: the awareness that even the most intimate bonds must yield to the natural course of life. This is the first film of the so-called "Noriko trilogy", in which actress Setsuko Hara plays three different women with the same name.