A beloved classic less known outside of Japan, Where Spring Comes Late AKA Family is a fascinating companion to Yamada Yoji’s iconic series of films starring Atsumi Kiyoshi as the stumbling working-class hero Tora-san. Dramatically expanding the series' intimate look at everyday family life into a sweeping portrait of Japan itself, Where Spring Comes Late reassembles the cast of the series' first film, Tora-san, Our Lovable Tramp—released just one year earlier (and screened last year at the HFA to launch our ongoing series celebrating the Shochiku Centennial Collection)—as a coal miner's family whose bonds are tested by an epic journey in search of a better life. Dynamically adapting the film’s documentary style to the widescreen, Yamada uses the eponymous family's train trip from Nagasaki to Hokkaido to offer a panoramic vista of the island nation whose citizens are gratefully thanked in an opening title. A stop in Osaka brings the family to the now legendary Osaka Expo '70, a crucible for intermedia art and counter-cinema, which offers precious images of the event and also suggests the film's distinct, critical relationship to currents of the contemporary Japanese avant-garde, specifically the so-called “landscape movement” inaugurated by contemporary films such as Oshima Nagisa's The Man Who Left His Will on Film, released the same year, and Adachi Masao's AKA Serial Killer, filmed almost at the same moment. Counter to Adachi and Oshima's critical exploration of landscape (mostly cityscapes, in fact) as an expression of alienation and oppression, Yamada's instead embraces the rolling rural Japanese landscape as a welcoming space of possibility. This important addition to the Shochiku Centennial Collection will be screened in a dazzling new 35mm print.