upon to assist his friend, the actress Kinuyo Tanaka, in completing her second film as director, The Moon Has Risen. By the time production on Early Spring began, Ozu had been away from the director's chair for three years: a substantial hiatus for someone who had averaged a picture a year since the end of the Second World War. In the meantime, the "Ofuna-cho" or "home drama", the genre of film with which Ozu was most closely associated, had decreased in popularity. Ozu maintained that "the traditions of the Ofuna-cho are the result of 30 years. They are not going to fall in one morning". Nevertheless, under pressure from his studio, Ozu made several concessions to modernity. He cast mostly young and popular actors, and, with long-time collaborator Kōgo Noda, delivered a script devoid of the dominant parental figures that were a fixture of his previous films. The theme of communication problems between generations, another familiar trope of Ozu's work, was also absent. In its place was the theme of disillusionment with life as a salaryman. "I wanted to have a go at representing their lifestyle," said Ozu. "The thrill and aspirations one feels as a fresh graduate entering society gradually wane as the days go by. Even working diligently for thirty years doesn't amount to much." Early Spring makes use of temporal ellipses, gaps in the narrative into which the audience is invited to project meaning, which are common in Ozu's films. For example, after Shoji and Goldfish begin their fling we do not see them alone together until Goldfish visits Shoji's home. Since this is after the pair's friends have confronted Goldfish, we, like the friends, do not know for certain if the affair is ongoing. Ozu also omits potentially melodramatic moments: Masako does not discover her husband's lipstick-stained handkerchief on screen, but instead recounts the discovery to her mother. Reception Rotten Tomatoes reports 100% approval for Early Spring, with an average rating of 8/10. In a highly positive review, Nora Sayre of The New York Times wrote that the work "conveys the claustrophobia of office life better than any other film I've seen", and that "Ozu finds dramatic depths in quiet, ordinary lives. And during the time that you spend with these people—the span of the movie—you really feel that you've come to know them well, to understand why their relationships do or don't develop." Sayre wrote