“There is a pervading sense of nostalgia-in-the-making as Ozu looks at the ever broadening bond between a widowed father and his only son over a 20-year period. From an early fishing trip where the two are united by their identical casting motions to a bath they share at a later reunion, moments of mutual happiness carry the shadow of impending loss....” --Sheldon Renan. In his book, “To the Distant Observer,” Noel Burch calls There Was a Father “Ozu's last masterpiece...amost excruciatingly sublimated....”