Early Spring

The bleakest of Ozu's salaryman films, and one of his longest. Sugiyama works at a company in Tokyo. He takes the same train every morning, sits at the same desk, drinks in the same bar with the same friends every evening. His marriage went quiet after the death of their child. Then an affair begins with a young woman from the office, Chiyo, whom their circle calls Goldfish. Ozu's subject here is not love but the way working life wears a person down. Everyone talks about the same things throughout: promotion, transfer, salary, what to do after retirement, and what thirty years given to a company is worth. When one character falls ill and disappears, it passes as an ordinary event of that system. Ryo Ikebe plays Sugiyama, Chikage Awashima his wife and Keiko Kishi plays Chiyo. It runs close to two and a half hours and is among his slowest. The right place to go for anyone who loved Tokyo Story and wants more; a poor place to start with Ozu.