Viewed on DVD. Restoration = six (6) stars. This movie can be an acquired taste, but the viewer must be extremely patient during the acquisition process! Overly long due to interior/exterior visual padding and foot-dragging direction, it nonetheless exhibits: some fine acting from many contemporaneously well-known actors and actresses; a well constructed script with many red herrings, twists, turns, and moments of great dialog (plus a phantom major character); plenty of location shots (including the Kiyomizu-Dera Temple and the stone garden at Ryoan-Ji in Kyoto which pretty much look the same today); good sound; and clearly-enunciated line readings. Subtitles are right sized. Except for an occasional pan of sea waves or fields, cinematography is spot-on static. All action occurs within the frame (like viewing a stage play). Even for close-ups on bikes! However, camera placements are imaginative and lighting is well done. On occasion, the director films the backs of speaking actors when the viewer would expect expressive frontal shots. This "back acting" is interesting, but a bit disconcerting (especially when a back-acting shot is immediately followed by a duplicate front-acting one). Music lacks imagination in composition and film placement. It is monotonous (there is essentially only one Leif motif played over and over) and often inserted into the sound track in an amateurish manner. The serene, apparently economically-secure, middle-class society depicted here did not yet exist, and seems to have been offered up by the director as a proper modern and attainable objective (which was reached by Japan in an incredibly short time thereafter!). Semi-restoration leaves behind wear lines, frame jitters (especially during the opening credits), and age-related deterioration during dark scenes. WILLIAM FLANIGAN, PhD.
Review of Late Spring
