Synopsis
The End of Summer (Kohayagawa-ke no aki, 1961) is a late Yasujiro Ozu drama you can watch online on iFILM. The aging head of a small Osaka sake brewery has begun slipping away to see a mistress from his youth, just as the business falters. His family worries about all of it at once — his health, the accounts, and the gossip.
Old Manbei has three grown daughters and a widowed daughter-in-law, and not one of their futures is settled. The eldest is weighing a second marriage. The youngest already has a suitor chosen for her. Akiko (Setsuko Hara), gentle and quietly stubborn, is being steered toward a remarriage she does not want. While the younger generation fusses over matchmaking and ledgers, the old man simply lives as he pleases.
Ozu films it the way only he does: the camera low and still, long unhurried takes, whole lives turning on a conversation over tea. Beneath the calm runs a real ache for a way of life that is ending. One of the director's final works and a farewell role for Setsuko Hara in his cinema, with Yoko Tsukasa, Keiju Kobayashi and Akira Takarada rounding out the cast. Stream The End of Summer (1961) online on iFILM.
Starring
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