A Hen in the Wind

Tokiko is waiting for her husband to come back from the war. Her four-year-old son falls ill, the hospital wants money, and she has none. She works one night as a prostitute, pays, and the boy recovers. A month later her husband returns. She tells him. This is Ozu's second postwar film and the harshest of his known works. What sits at the center is not what the woman did but how the husband responds: he cannot forgive, cannot forget, and takes his anger as far as physical violence. Ozu does not soften that scene in any way. Kinuyo Tanaka plays Tokiko, with Chishū Ryū also in the cast. Ozu considered the film a failure himself, and never again entered conflict this directly in his later work. Who it's for: Anyone interested in Ozu, postwar Japan, and the films where he steps outside his known manner. Who it's not for: The scene of domestic violence is hard to watch and the reconciliation at the end is uncomfortable from here. The refinements of Ozu's mature period are also absent.