Tokyo Twilight

Name: Tokyo Twilight
Director: Yasujirō Ozu
Released: 1957

Synopsis

Two sisters find out the existence of their long-lost mother, but the younger cannot accept the fact that she was abandoned as a child.

90
Los Angeles Times
Ozu cherishes tradition but accepts the inevitability of loss and change, and is as all-embracing as Jean Renoir. His people may judge and not forgive, often understandably, but as one of the greatest filmmakers he does not do so. [04 Oct 2007, p.E13]
90
Time Out
Tokyo Twilight' - [Ozu's] last black-and-white movie - takes him into unusually melodramatic territory, a dark disintegrating family saga that has broken marriages, unwanted pregnancy, gambling, prostitution, vice cops and so on. What's amazing, however, is that Ozu's narrative and visual ellipses keep sensationalism, hysteria and cliche at bay, so that it all rings true in ways undreamt of by most other directors. [10 May 2006, p.86]
88
Chicago Reader
This rarely screened, melancholy 1957 film, Yasujiro Ozu’s last in black and white, is one of his best.
88
Chicago Tribune
Ozu is often wrongly characterized as a "soft" director preoccupied with middle-class home life, but this late film tackles extreme subject matter--spousal abuse and abortion--with unflinching skill. [18 Nov 2005, p.C6]
80
The New Yorker
Yasujiro Ozu’s direction brings emotional depth and philosophical heft to this turbulent and grim family melodrama.
80
TV Guide Magazine
This film ventures into slightly darker psychodramatic territory than much of Ozu's work, by courageously dramatizing and exploring issues such as maternal abandonment, broken families and substance abuse.