Late Spring (1949)

Highly Recommended

Japan

Feature Film
Original Title: 晩春
Director: Ozu Yasujirō
Writers: Hirotsu Kazuo, Noda Kōgo, Ozu Yasujirō
Cinematographer: Atsuta Yuuharu
Composer: Itō Senji
Cast: Ryū Chishū, Hara Setsuko, Tsukioka Yumeji, Sugimura Haruko, Aoki Hohi, Usami Jun

At the risk of his own happiness, and despite her many protestations, an ageing Tokyo gentleman becomes determined to marry off his 27-year-old daughter, in Ozu‘s beautifully nuanced and quietly devastating film, which can boast cinema’s first pairing of the ever wonderful Ryu and Hara. Iain.Stott

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Harold and Maude (1971)

Essential Viewing

USA
Feature Film
Director: Hal Ashby
Writer: Colin Higgins
Cinematographer: John Alonzo
Cast: Ruth Gordon, Bud Cort, Vivian Pickles, Cyril Cusack, Charles Tyner

A death obsessed, compulsive funeral attending young man, Harold (a pasty Bud Cort), meets a vivacious, carefree woman on the verge of her 80th birthday, Maude (a never better Ruth Gordon), and a tentative romance forms, in Ashby’s ridiculously funny, satirically nuanced, and swooningly romantic (?) take on the May-December relationship. Iain.Stott

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The Only Son (1936)

Highly Recommended

Japan

Feature Film
Original Title: ひとり息子
Director: Ozu Yasujirō
Writers: Ozu Yasujirō, Arata Masao, Ikeda Tadao
Cinematographer: Sugimoto Shojiro
Composer: Itō Senji
Cast: Iida Chouko, Himori Shinichi, Hayama Masao, Tsubouchi Yoshiko, Yoshikawa Mitsuko, Ryū Chishū

An ageing woman (the outstanding Iida) goes to Tokyo to visit her only son (the doleful Himori), bringing with her great expectations, in this, Ozu’s first sound film, an exquisitely beautiful and achingly moving examination of nobility, sacrifice, disappointment, and broken dreams, which boasts one of cinema’s most devastating final scenes. Iain.Stott

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Partie de Campagne (1936)

Recommended

France

Short Feature Film

Original Title: Partie de campagne
Director: Jean Renoir
Writers: Jean Renoir, Guy de Maupassant
Cinematography: Claude Renoir
Composer: Joseph Kosma
Cast: Sylvia Bataille, Georges Saint-Saens, Jeanne Marken, André Gabriello, Jacques Borel, Paul Temps

The attractive daughter of a Parisian family, spending an idyllic day in the country, enjoys a brief romantic encounter with a moustachioed local, in Renoir’s much loved, beautifully shot, and tenderly acted though rather cheesily scored and erratically paced short feature. Iain.Stott

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L'Atalante (1934)

Recommended

France
Feature Film

Original Title: L'atalante
Director: Jean Vigo
Writers: Albert Riéra, Jean Vigo, Jean Guinée
Cinematographers: Jean-Paul Alphen, Louis Berger, Boris Kaufman
Composer: Maurice Jaubert
Cast: Dita Parlo, Jean Dasté, Michel Simon, Gilles Margaritis, Louis Lefebvre

A just-married barge skipper struggles to juggle professional with personal commitments as he takes a working honeymoon, traversing the canals of northern France with his new wife and, problematically, his crew in tow, in this comic, elegantly shot, and much admired film. Iain.Stott

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Through the Olive Trees (1994)

Essential Viewing

Iran/France

Feature Film
Original Title: زیر درختان زیتون
Writer/Director: Abbas Kiarostami
Cinematographers: Hossein Djafarian, Farhad Saba
Cast: Mohamad Ali Keshavarz, Farhad Kheradmand, Zarifeh Shiva, Hossein Rezai, Tahereh Ladanian

Kiarostami, further blurring the line between fact and fiction, directs his fictional alter ego, Keshavarz, directing his fictional alter ego, Kheradmand, on the set of And Life Goes on... (1991), in this final part of the Koker Trilogy, in which the making of a small, seemingly insignificant scene is documented in all its humanity-infused and surprisingly romantic detail – a brilliant masterpiece, boasting (perhaps) the greatest final scene in cinema history. Iain.Stott

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And Life Goes On... (1991)

Highly Recommended

Iran
Feature Film
Original Title: Zendegi va digar hich
Writer/Director: Abbas Kiarostami
Cinematographer: Homayun Payvar
Cast: Farhad Kheradmand, Buba Bayour

A film-maker (Kiarostami, played by Kheradmand) returns with his son to Koker, the site of his 1987 film Where Is My Friend's House?, following a devastating earthquake in the region, in search of the two young brothers who starred in the earlier film, in this oft brilliant work, which is one of Kiarostami’s more formally playful and intellectually stimulating pieces, though far from his most emotionally engaging. Iain.Stott

Followed by Through the Olive Trees (1994).

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