“A Hen in the Wind” was an Ozu movie that I hadn’t even heard of before I sat down with my dear friends Ben and Kat Sachs and Jake Mulligan at the Harvard Film Archive, a theater I’ve been lucky enough to visit since I first arrived in Cambridge for school in 2008. Seeing Ozu on 35mm was a revelation. The misgivings and misconceptions I’d held about Ozu melted away, and a transcendent treatise on human life emerged. What a joy. But it wasn’t always easy viewing; case in point, the subject of this month’s Unloved, Ozu’s least favorite of his works. Be warned, it gets bracing. But as always with Ozu, getting a clearer picture of the man and his movies is worth it.
To watch more of Scout Tafoya’s video essays from his series The Unloved, click here.