“Sometimes I just hate my work.”

In Early Spring, Ozu crafts an extremely compelling indictment of 1950s Japanese capitalism. News flash: it sucks. He doesn’t do so in a pandering, Mickey 17 (or even Severance for that matter) way, no. Instead he tells the story of a ionless marriage and the affair that tears it apart. But what does this have to do with capitalism? Everything. Ozu is so clear in his convictions yet so subtle in how he approaches anything…