Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
 

That Night's Wife (1930)

Director: Yasujiro Ozu

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

One of seven films Ozu made in 1930, this seems at first to be a prime example of his 'atypical' early silent period, when he experimented with numerous Hollywood-influenced genres and techniques before gradually refining the minimalist style and thematic focus of his mature career. The film opens as an effective heist drama pastiche, with Okada trussing up bank clerks and dodging the long shadows of a police dragnet, fox-like; we follow him home to his wife and their critically ill baby daughter, as does a wily police chief. As captor and prey sit out the night, waiting for the child's recovery, the scene is set for a claustrophobic battle of nerves. But see how Ozu - and his characters - constantly forgo the opportunities for conventional melodramatic conflict. The antagonists accepting with remarkable equanimity both their roles and their fate on opposing sides of the law. Seeds of Ozu's conservatism are well in evidence, then, but so too is his sedate pace and his even-handed sympathy and contemplativeness.

Author: NB 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields


Cast & crew

Director: Yasujiro Ozu

Cast: Tokihiko Okada, Emiko Yagumo, Mitsuko Ichimura, Togo Yamamoto, Tatsuo Saito, Chishu Ryu full cast

Duration: 65 mins


Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.