Synopsis
"As the title suggests,
Late Autumn is tinged with a sense of the inevitable end of things – especially happiness. In a variant of
Ozu’sfavorite theme, a widow (
Setsuko Hara) lives quietly with her devoted daughter, who rebuffs any suggestion that she should be married. Three middle-aged businessmen, old friends of the family, try to act as matchmakers and decide that the widow must be married first, to “free” the daughter of her familial obligations.
Ozu said of
Late Autumn: “People sometimes complicate the simplest things. Life, which seems complex, suddenly reveals itself as very simple – and I wanted to show that in this film.” He makes of this situation both a comedy – as the well-intentioned schemes of the three businessmen go awry – and an elegy of transience.” – Harvard Film Archive
