Tokyo Story [Criterion Collection] [3 Discs] [Blu-ray/2 DVDs]

Originally Tokyo Monogatari, Yasujiro Ozu's Tokyo Story centers on a provincial Japanese family. The elderly parents and youngest daughter journey to Tokyo to visit their doctor son and his brood. Too busy for this onslaught of relatives, the callous, insensitive doctor packs his parents and sibling off to a resort, where they are unable to enjoy themselves due to the noise of the other tourists. The aging father locates some old drinking cronies, while the mother seeks out new friends. And so it goes, in Ozu's inimitable anecdotal fashion, until the tragic finale. A sensitive study of the frustrations and disillusionments accompanying the onslaught of old age (Ozu, incidentally, was only 51 at the time), Tokyo Story was completed in 1953, but not released in the U.S. until 1972.