Deceptively breezy, Yasujiro Ozu's final film, made in 1962, is the lovely culmination of the mysterious writer-director's fascination with family, and the social mechanisms by which different generations fulfill obligations to one another and to themselves. The central character, Shuhei Hirayama (Chishu Ryu, Ozu's longtime collaborator), is a 60-ish executive and widower who slowly grows concerned that his 24-year-old daughter, Michiko (Shima Iwashita), has not married because she feels responsible for taking care of him at home. Taciturn, low-key, but affable, Shuhei is a hard man to read. But through his friendships, habits, daily reminders of his past and fear that he might rob his daughter of her youth, Shuhei gradually comes to terms with his responsibility to see Michiko fulfilled and happy. There is also more to it than that: "An Autumn Afternoon" is also about Shuhei turning a page in his small part in history, the closing chapters of a life that involved military service during World War II and settling into post-war, largely Westernized Japan. These things are all understated, but Ozu gives every character a shape, a recognition that one must play the cards one is dealt without self-deception. With that comes a certain Zen serenity, humor and perhaps melancholy, but in "An Autumn Afternoon"'s spirit of acceptance, a bittersweet life is a good life. Special features on this Criterion release include trailers and excerpts from a French television special about Ozu. "--Tom Keogh"