Early Spring (1956)

Perhaps because of it’s longer runtime, this film about a married salaryman who has a short affair with a co-worker is thus far my least favorite of Ozu’s works. Aside from the stereotype seen in American media, I wasn’t really aware of the concept of salarymen and the lives they lead. I think here Ozu was attempting too much by portraying the strains of a salaryman’s life while still examining the strains in a marriage. No doubt the pressures of work have effects on the home life, but this felt like an unbalanced exploration of the two in conjunction with a lot of focus on the man’s work life. I did find it interesting that this film, like Late Autumn, featured a scene where a group of men tell a woman how she should act in her own love affairs.