In his 35 years of filmmaking, the great Yasujiro Ozu often returned to the theme of families in transition. For his final film, 1962's An Autumn Afternoon ("Sanma no aji"), Ozu visited this territory once more. It wasn't his intention for the picture to be the last of his career, but with his death from cancer that same year at age 60, the film stands as an appropriate curtain call for a magnificent director.

Undergoing an uncomfortable transition this time is salaryman Shuhei Hirayama (Chishu Ryu), a widower living with two of his three children -- his daughter, Michiko (Shima Iwashita), and his younger son, Kazuo (Shinichiro Mikami). When a woman in his office announces that she's engaged, Hirayama considers marriage for Michiko, and his best friend, Kawai (Nobuo Nakamura) believes he knows a suitable young man.

Hirayama's also thinking about his daughter because an old teacher, nicknamed "The Gourd," lives with his own adult daughter at the noodle shop that he now operates. The daughter has remained single, preferring to stay home to care for her aging father – an excuse that Michiko uses as well, and Hirayama doesn't like this glimpse into his possible future, should his own daughter never marry.

Contrasting this traditional arrangement is the marriage of Hirayama's older son, Koichi (Keiji Sada) and his wife, who embrace Western luxuries, yet have to borrow money from Hirayama to support their lifestyle. In Ozu's Japan, children remain dependent on parents even after they leave the nest, but the more "Westernized" offspring don't give anything back. Yet, the luxuries are seen as progress, and Hirayama is happy to help his son.

An Autumn Afternoon balances, throughout its slowly unfolding narrative, the cultural give-and-take of post World War II Japan. But this is a different Ozu than in his earlier films Late Spring and The End of Summer, which treated familial changes (an allegory for Japanese cultural evolution) with fear and bitterness. In Autumn, Ozu seems to have capitulated to the ways in which WWII altered his world, grudgingly admitting that things like vacuum cleaners, refrigerators and golf clubs are a positive addition to Japanese life. At a reunion with friends that he served with during the war, Hirayama contemplates the new Japan, and says, "I think it was good that we lost." One wonders what a fourth, winter-themed film would have revealed, had Ozu lived to direct it.

What's most interesting about An Autumn Afternoon is Ozu's treatment of the female characters. The director has always offered complex, intelligent women in his pictures, and this is no exception. The story is told from a steadfastly male perspective, that of older Japanese men still steeped in traditional ways. Female employees at Hirayama's job are asked if and when they intend to marry, a kimono-wearing woman obsequiously serves sake to the drinking war buddies, wives are expected to prepare evening meals, and daughters stay home to care for their fathers.

Yet, the men are continually focused on and kept in check by the needs of the women. Koichi's wife refuses to wait on her husband, despite his expectations, and won't allow him to buy new golf clubs. Hirayama's war buddy, recently married to a much younger woman, leaves their reunion early to keep his bride happy. And Hirayama's own desire to marry off his daughter comes not from a need to comply with cultural requirements, but because he wants her to have a life of her own.

It's a fascinating, pre-feminism observation about the changing role of women, seen through the eyes of rather oblivious men, and like everything else in Ozu's films, it's presented with an effortless elegance.

As with all of his later pictures, An Autumn Afternoon is technically innovative, from the low-to-the-ground camera placements (called the "tatami shot," an Ozu invention) to his stunning, simple framing of everyday scenes to create works of quiet beauty. He also ignores many common conventions of cinema -- for example, characters discuss a wedding before the event and then afterward, without Ozu ever showing us the wedding itself.

It's a shame that Ozu, who influenced filmmakers like Wim Wenders and Martin Scorsese, died at such a relatively young age, because it would have been fascinating to see what the remainder of the 1960s would have looked like through his eyes.

The Criterion Collection's DVD release offers the film in its original 1.33:1 full-frame aspect ratio. It's a very clean, pretty transfer, up to Criterion's usual sterling standards, with a very good monaural soundtrack audio track (Japanese, with English subtitles).

Extras include a 28-page booklet with essays by critic Geoff Andrew and film scholar Donald Ritchie, and excellent, revealing audio commentary by David Bordwell (author of the book Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema), a clip from a 1978 French television show called Yasujiro Ozu and The Taste of Saki on the director's work, and the theatrical trailer.

Dawn Taylor believes autumn to be the finest time of year.

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