After the death of her husband, an elderly woman and her youngest, unmarried daughter are forced to sell their house to cover his debts and decide to move in with one of the former's children, each of whom is scarcely happy to accommodate.
Direction
Ozu's signature low-angle tatami shots create invisible prison bars.
Writing
Every bow and greeting drips with buried resentment.
Director
Yasujirō Ozu
Hideo Fujino
Shintaro Toda
Fumiko Katsuragi
Mrs. Toda
Mitsuko Yoshikawa
Chizuru
Tatsuo Saitō
Shinichiro
Kuniko Miyake
Kazuko
Shin Saburi
Shojiro Toda
Yoshiko Tsubouchi
Ayako
Toshiaki Konoe
Ayako's Husband
Mieko Takamine
Setsuko Toda
Michiko Kuwano
Tokiko
Reikichi Kawamura
Suzuki
Chōko Iida
Kiyo
Masao Hayama
Ryokichi
Fumiko Okamura
Unagi Shop Landlady
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Made during wartime privation, the film's housing crisis mirrored actual Japanese families torn apart by economic collapse.
Ozu allegedly destroyed the original negative; the surviving print was rescued from a warehouse fire, making this a ghost of itself.
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