Record of a Tenement Gentleman

Yasujiro Ozu’s first post–World War II film takes place in an impoverished Tokyo neighborhood that has been partly destroyed in bombing raids. Here, a hard-hearted middle-aged widow (Choko Iida) reluctantly takes in a child (Hohi Aoki) abandoned by his father. Bitter at first, she soon finds herself growing fond of the boy. Ozu’s delicate, humorous, and unsentimental story of redemption is the director’s expression of a country slowly coming out of the dark.