Record of a Tenement Gentleman (1947) review

On his way back home (from working as some sort of fortune teller), Tashiro (Ozu mainstay Chishū Ryū) finds a deserted child named Kōhei (Hōhi Aoki) and he and his neighbors convince the widow O-tane (Chōko Iida) to take care of him, which she does ever so reluctantly - at first she tries to ditch the child, but later on when he leaves, she gets worried and goes out looking for him.  As Ozu's first film post-World War II, it shows Japan a little reeling from combat but resilient - buildings are damaged and there's rubble on the ground, food is being rationed, etc. - and while this story of his is a little bit thinly stretched out, his sense of empathy and fellow-feeling is still ever-present.  Few filmmakers have such a light touch when working with children - Truffaut being another one - and his Kōhei is both an annoyance (he keeps wetting the bed, perhaps representing the collective trauma of Japan's children) and pitiable.