Story of movie The End Of Summer : The End of Summer (?????? Kohayagawa-ke no aki, lit. "Autumn for the Kohayagawa family") is a 1961 film directed by Yasujir? Ozu. It was entered into the 12th Berlin International Film Festival. 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 by | Yasujir? Ozu |
| Produced by | Sanezumi Fujimoto Masakatsu Kaneko Tadahiro Teramoto |
| Written by | K?go Noda Yasujir? Ozu |
| Starring | Ganjir? Nakamura Setsuko Hara Yoko Tsukasa |
| Music by | Toshiro Mayuzumi |
| Cinematography | Asakazu Nakai |
| Edited by | Koichi Iwashita |
| Distributed by | Toho |
Release date |
|
Running time | 103 minutes |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | English |
Ganjir? Nakamura plays the patriarch of the Kohayagawa family, who runs a sake brewery company. Setsuko Hara, Michiyo Aratama and Yoko Tsukasa play his daughters. Chish? Ry?, a long-time collaborator of Ozu, has a small cameo as a farmer towards the end of the film. Most of the action takes place in Kyoto.
Screenplay
Manbei Kohayagawa (Ganjir? Nakamura) is the head of a small sake brewery company at 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 Kat?) 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.
- Ganjir? Nakamura – Kohayagawa Manbei
- Setsuko Hara – Akiko, Manbei's widowed daughter-in-law
- Minoru, Akiko's son
- Yoko Tsukasa – Noriko, Manbei's youngest daughter
- Michiyo Aratama – Fumiko, Manbei's oldest daughter
- Keiju Kobayashi – Hisao, Fumiko's husband
- Masahiko Shimazu – Masao, their son
- Hisaya Morishige – Isomura Eiichirou, Akiko's suitor
- Chieko Naniwa – Sasaki Tsune
- Reiko Dan – Yuriko, her daughter
- Haruko Sugimura – Kato Shige, Manbei's sister-in-law from Nagoya
- Daisuke Kat? – Kitagawa Yanosuke, "the uncle from Osaka," Manbei's brother-in-law
- Haruko Togo – Kitagawa Teruko, Yanosuke's wife
- Yumi Shirakawa – Nakanishi Takako
- Akira Takarada – Teramoto Tadashi
- Ky? Sazanka – Yamaguchi, Chief clerk
- Chish? Ry? – Farmer
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."
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."
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
