#Michiyo Kan

[rpsabetto]

An Autumn Afternoon [Sanma no aji] [The Taste of Mackerel Pike]

An Autumn Afternoon [Sanma no aji] [The Taste of Mackerel Pike]

(Japan 1962)

“We are alone in life. Always alone.”

— Sakuma

If one film perfectly captures what solitude, melancholia, and acceptance of things for what they are feels like, it has to be Yasujirō Ozu’s gorgeous and quietly contemplative An Autumn Afternoon [秋刀魚の味]. Framing death and loneliness in such metaphors as war, alcohol, marriage, aging, and the global impact of postwar America, this one…