Early Spring
Restored classic by Japanese master Yasujiro Ozu about the sometimes joyful and sometimes sad family life of a humble office clerk.
To stave off the boredom in his passionless marriage, the underpaid office worker Sugiyama turns his interest to the office flirt. His wife finds out but tries to make a new start with her husband.
Unlike most of Ozu’s post-war films, EARLY SPRING is set in Japan’s lower middle class. The film highlights a unique period in modern Japanese history, the 1950s, when the former empire was rising from the ruins of war. There was little hope for the future; even those who were employed were usually poor. Ozu portrays the family life of the Japanese office clerk with humour and great warmth and empathy for the men at the bottom of the corporate hierarchy.