Film: ‘A Hen in the Wind’ (Ozu Yasujiro)

Introduced by Sam Ho For many people, Ozu films, as great as they are, seem to be all of one type: quiet explorations of the daily lives of middle class families, often focused around marriages or other transitions. That description does capture many of Ozu’s films made from 1949 on, but Ozu was always more varied than the stereotype suggests. Nowhere is this more evident than in his 1948 film A Hen in the Wind. Starring the great Tanaka Kinuyo, A Hen in the Wind harkens back to Ozu’s work of the 1930s, which often explored the lives of the urban poor, people for whom destitution and starvation are real possibilities. This film features Tanaka as a young wife and mother who waits for her husband to return from the war, not knowing if he is even alive. When her son gets sick, she must make a momentous decision that will have far-reaching implications. This is a film whose power to shock remains undiminished after nearly 70 years.