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I thought I'd read this back in 2011 when it came out, but I picked it up off the shelf recently and noticed a bookmark half way through. I love Ozu and I like the idea of throwing off the weight of accepted criticism and taking a "layman" approach to analysing one of his best films. Why would I have given up on such a short book about a subject I find fascinating?returnreturnI suspect it's because Mars-Jones' forensic dissection of every single shot in the film eventually begins to suck all the life out of it. This approach offers occasional insights but a lot of the time it's the text equivalent of an Arnold Schwarzenegger DVD commentary: "Here's Noriko. She comes into the house. She's upset but she's hiding it. She avoids her father's eyes and goes upstairs..." and on and on. You can almost see him checking the word count, sighing, and adding one more paragraph about hankies.returnreturnIt's not all bad, and it provides some interesting background on the conditions in which the film was made and the general history of Japanese cinema. I think I'll stick with the critics in future though.