Tokyo Twilight

Ozu's darkest film and his last in black and white. Two sisters live with their father. Takako, the elder, has left her husband and come home with her child; Akiko, the younger, is pregnant and the father has disappeared. There is something neither of them knows: the mother who left the house years ago has come back to Tokyo and runs a small mahjong parlour in the city. Ozu steps outside his own habits here. In his other films tension inside a family is passed over gently; here abortion, abandonment and suicide are inside the narrative directly. Set through the winter, it is entirely cold, against the warmth of the seasonally titled films he is known for. Setsuko Hara plays Takako, Ineko Arima plays Akiko and Chishu Ryu is the father. It did not find the audience expected in Japan on release; it was far from the register Ozu's viewers were used to. Important for anyone who knows Ozu and wants his harshest film. A poor place to start with him: it is long, heavy and offers no consolation.