The End of Summer

The End of Summer (小早川家の秋, Kohayagawa-ke no aki, lit. "Autumn of the Kohayagawa family") is a 1961 film directed by Yasujirō Ozu. It was entered into the 12th Berlin International Film Festival.[1] The film was his penultimate; only An Autumn Afternoon (1962) followed it.

The End of Summer
Theatrical poster for The End of Summer (1961)
Directed byYasujirō Ozu
Produced bySanezumi Fujimoto
Masakatsu Kaneko
Tadahiro Teramoto
Written byKōgo Noda
Yasujirō Ozu
StarringGanjirō Nakamura
Setsuko Hara
Yoko Tsukasa
Music byToshiro Mayuzumi
CinematographyAsakazu Nakai
Edited byKoichi Iwashita
Distributed byToho
Release date
  • 29 October 1961 (1961-10-29)
Running time
103 minutes
CountryJapan
LanguageJapanese,English

Plot

Manbei Kohayagawa (Ganjirō Nakamura) is the head of a small sake brewery company in Kyoto, with two daughters and a widowed daughter-in-law. His daughter-in-law, Akiko (Setsuko Hara), and youngest daughter, Noriko (Yoko Tsukasa), live together in Osaka. Akiko helps out at an art gallery and has a son Minoru. Noriko, unmarried, works as a salaried office worker. Manbei's other daughter, Fumiko (Michiyo Aratama), lives with him. Her husband, Hisao, helps at the brewery and they have a young son Masao.

Manbei asks his brother-in-law Kitagawa (Daisuke Katō) to find Akiko a husband, and Kitagawa lets Akiko meet a friend of his, Isomura Eiichirou (Hisaya Morishige), a widower, at a pub. Isomura is enthusiastic about the match but Akiko is hesitant. Manbei also asks Kitagawa to arrange a matchmaking session for his youngest daughter, Noriko.

During summer Manbei sneaks out constantly to meet his old flame, a former mistress by the name of Sasaki Tsune (Chieko Naniwa). Sasaki has a grown-up, rather Westernized daughter Yuriko who may or may not be Manbei's own daughter. When Fumiko finds out Manbei has been seeing Sasaki again, she is angered and confronts her father, but Manbei denies the whole affair.

The Kohayagawa family meets for a memorial service for their late mother at Arashiyama. After returning, Manbei has a heart attack but survives. Akiko asks Noriko about her matchmaking session with a man with a voracious appetite, but it appears Noriko is more inclined towards a friend Teramoto (Akira Takarada), a lecturer who has just moved to Sapporo as an assistant professor.

In a secret trip out with Sasaki to and back from Osaka, Manbei has another heart attack, and dies shortly after. Sasaki informs the daughters of what happened. The ailing Kohayagawa brewery is to be merged with a business rival's, while Noriko decides to go to Sapporo to search out Teramoto. At the film's end, the Kohayagawa family gathers and reminisces about Manbei's life as his body is cremated.

Cast

Production

In order to secure its contract stars Setsuko Hara and Yoko Tsukasa from Toho for his prior film Late Autumn, Ozu agreed to direct The End of Summer for the studio, making it his only Toho film and the only one of three not produced for Shochiku (the others were Floating Weeds for Daiei and The Munekata Sisters for Shintoho). As a result, the film is filled with Toho players, many of whom took the opportunity to appear in their only Ozu film, including marquee headliners Hisaya Morishige and Akira Takarada taking small roles. Ozu added a scene at the end to accommodate star Yūko Mochizuki, who requested to be in the film, and his signature player Chishū Ryū.[2]

Reception

Dennis Schwartz praised The End of Summer as a "deft blending of comedy and tragedy", writing that Manbei's "lively antics give the film a wonderfully playful tone."[3]

Filmmaker Eugène Green, who gave the film one of his ten votes in the 2012 Sight & Sound directors' poll of the world's best films, wrote that it "stands out as a meditation on death, with certain shots of an extraordinary power and beauty. The scenes between the two sisters are deeply moving."[4]

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References

  1. "IMDB.com: Awards for The End of Summer". imdb.com. Retrieved 2010-02-05.
  2. Cohen, Doron. "The End of Summer - On Brightness and Darkness". Retrieved April 22, 2020.
  3. Schwartz, Dennis (June 21, 2007). ""The deft blending of comedy and tragedy."". Retrieved February 15, 2017.
  4. "Eugène Green". British Film Institute. Retrieved February 15, 2017.
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