Nice film with some sweet visual touches. It was essentially a remake of Tokyo Story and as much as I tried not to I kept comparing it to that great work and, unfortunately, it consistently came up short. Ozu's film was subtler, more restrained, more intelligent and had a stronger impact.
This veered into fresh territory in the second half when it moved to Japan with some nice footage at the cherry blossom festival, shots highlighting the monstrousness of contemporary architecture and the Mount Fuji scenes. But the artifice of the lead's relationship with the traditional dancer and, especially, his on-cue death clunked badly for me.
The theme of parents' disappointment at the callousness and indifference of their grown children was played with too heavy a hand. Over and over I was thinking...OK, I got it, move on...but she didn't.
Too bad, but you really need to be careful remaking one of the great films of all time.
4
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