| An Autumn Afternoon | |
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British DVD/Blu-ray cover |
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| Directed by | Yasujirō Ozu |
| Screenplay by | Kogo Noda Yasujirō Ozu |
| Starring | Chishu Ryu Shima Iwashita Keiji Sada Mariko Okada Teruo Yoshida Noriko Maki Shinichiro Mikami Eijiro Tono |
| Music by | Kojun Saito |
| Cinematography | Yûharu Atsuta |
| Editing by | Yoshiyasu Hamamura |
| Studio | Shochiku |
| Distributed by | Shochiku |
| Release date(s) | 18 November 1962 |
| Running time | 113 minutes |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
An Autumn Afternoon (秋刀魚の味 Sanma no aji, "The Taste of Mackerel Pike") is a 1962 Japanese drama film directed by Yasujirō Ozu. It stars Ozu regular Chishu Ryu as the patriarch of the Hirayama family who oversees the wedding of his daughter, played by Shima Iwashita. It was Ozu's last film; he died in the following year. It was shot using Agfacolor.
The credits of the film are placed before a backdrop of sketched or painted fronds instead of the usual sackcloth used in most of Ozu's films since A Story of Floating Weeds in 1934.
Shuhei Hirayama (Chishu Ryu) is an aging widower with a married eldest son, Koichi (Keiji Sada), and two unmarried children – a 24-year-old daughter Michiko (Shima Iwashita) and a younger son Kazuo (Shinichirô Mikami). Since marriage Koichi has shifted out with his wife, leaving Kazuo and Hirayama in Michiko's care.
Hirayama and his fellow classmates Kawai (Nobuo Nakamura) and Horie (Ryuji Kita) go to a class reunion where one of their teachers, Sakuma (Eijiro Tono), nicknamed the "Gourd", is in attendance. The friends tease Horie who has married a much younger wife. They reminisce about the past and Sakuma has too much to drink, and Kawai and Hirayama have to bring him home. They meet his spinster daughter Tomoko (Haruko Sugimura), who has missed the chance to marry when young, and is now too old to marry.
Koichi borrows 50,000 yen from his father to buy a refrigerator, but plans to use the excess money to buy second-hand golf clubs. His wife Akiko (Mariko Okada) is in disagreement, but finally relents. However, she decides ill-temperedly to use some of this extra money to buy for herself a white leather purse as well.
Sakuma tells his former pupils that it is owing to his own selfishness that his daughter is now an old spinster. Troubled by Sakuma's daughter's example, Hirayama decides on an arranged marriage for Michiko. He asks Koichi if Koichi's colleague Miura (Teruo Yoshida), whom Michiko is fond of, is interested in Michiko. Unfortunately, Miura is already engaged. Koichi and Hirayama break the news to a visibly upset Michiko, and later ask her if she is willing to go for a matchmaking session with a candidate Kawai has selected. Michiko agrees.
In one of the ellipses Ozu is famous for, the film forwards to Michiko's wedding day. (Michiko clearly has agreed to marry, though her bridegroom is never shown.) Michiko prepares to wed in a traditional wedding kimono. (The actual ceremony is never shown.) Hirayama goes to a bar to celebrate her wedding afterwards and ends up drunk. When he returns, Koichi and his wife go off, leaving behind Kazuo who duly goes to bed, and a melancholic Hirayama sitting in the middle of the night.
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