Record of a Tenement Gentleman(Nagaya shinshiroku)

For his first postwar film, Ozu presented a warm comedy of life, scavenging a sense of humanity and generosity of spirit amidst reconstruction. Found by a fortune-teller, an abandoned boy is put under the reluctant care of a middle-aged widow. Despite seemingly hardhearted, she gradually develops an affection with the child. Shot in the studio set designed to resemble the impoverished community which was effectively extinct, this disarmingly simple story reflects the social problem of orphans – rare within the auteur’s oeuvre – offering a pacifist statement about the effects of war.