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It's
fairly safe to say that nowadays veteran Japanese filmmaker
Shindō Kaneto is best known in the west as the director
of the vividly atmospheric 1962 erotic horror Onibaba,
but nip back two more years and it was Hadaka no shima [The
Naked Island] that was grabbing all the attention.
Made on approximately one-tenth of the usual feature
budget of the time, it was in many ways the result of
Shindō throwing all caution to the wind and making the
film he wanted to make rather than one that a studio expected.
His production company, Kindai Eiga Kyokai, looked set
to fold, and he decided that before it went under he was going
to "make a pure film with no concessions to commercialism."
The resulting work met with international acclaim and
was the joint winner of the Grand Prix at the 1961 Moscow
International Film Festival. For some years,
however, the film has remained virtually unseen in the
UK, which is where Eureka's Masters of Cinema label
steps in.
Hadaka
no shima is the very essence of minimalist
cinema – there is no real dialogue and precious little
in the way of story, while actions that would normally
be cut short by editing are shown almost in their entirety. This is likely to present a problem for the
impatient viewer, but if you surrender to Shindō's technique,
temporarily put aside those early high-octane Yakuza
movies that have helped bring about the present revival
of interest in classic Japanese cinema, and move down
in pace a few gears, then you will experience something
really rather wonderful.
The
film is centred entirely around a poor farming family,
consisting of a mother, a father and two young boys,
who are the only inhabitants of a small, sun-baked island
in the Setonaikai archipelago in south-western Japan.
They make their very basic living growing crops on the
steep hillsides, but there is no fresh water supply
on the island and the couple have to make regular trips across the
bay to collect it in order to feed both themselves and
their harvest. The island has no modern machinery and no
electricity, and the water has to be laboriously transported
and carried up steep and precarious paths in wooden
pails balanced on shoulder-mounted poles.
The
importance of the water and the work required to transport
it is shown in extraordinary detail – journeys are completed
almost in real time, as the camera focuses on the couple's
facial expressions or their sometimes nail-bitingly
uncertain footing, as they slowly struggle with balance
and weight up a path that would leave even the unburdened
out of breath. Shindo clearly wants us to understand
the importance of the water and the controlling nature
of the labour required to collect it, and achieves this
through an opening sequence whose length would seem
to defy all cinematic logic. Try to imagine just how
long you could keep such a scene going without losing
your audience. Five minutes? Ten at a push? Try thirty
minutes, almost a third of the film's ninety-three
minute running time. It simply should not work, but
by thunder it does. A brief meal and the transportation
of one of the children to a nearby school is worked
in there too, but essentially the first half-hour of
the film is just about the transportation of water and
the feeding of crops. But as with contemporary Bresson
and later Kiarostami, there is absolute purpose to Shindō's
approach. This resonates sharply when, almost
inevitably, some water is accidentally spilled, and
in a whole number of ways later in the film, notably when a
tragic turn of events prompts a sobering rethink of
that long walk up the hill, of the relationship between
the father and mother, and even the watering itself.
By reducing life to its most basic elements, the film
very effectively prompts a degree of introspection in
its audience – stripped of the trappings and conveniences
of modern life and society, there is a clarity here
that is startling, enlightening, and deeply affecting.
If
the first third passes almost invisibly, then the economy
of storytelling moves the rest of the
film forward at a disarming pace, as an entire season comes
and goes in only a few short minutes, and the fruit of
the couple's year-long labour is represented by four
small packages delivered to the local mayor by way of
taxes or rent. Much of the film has an
documentary quality to it (at the 1961 Moscow Festival,
the press did not realise the two leads were actors),
with the turn of events in the final third providing
the only examples of traditional story development, and even here the purpose is
linked specifically to life and location rather than
narrative needs.
It seems clear that
much of the film is meant to be read symbolically or
metaphorically. The primitive tools and methods employed
by the family ground the film in no specific historical
period (Alex Cox observes in his introduction that for
the most part it could be set in medieval times), and
the portrayal of poor farm workers bypassed by rapid
industrialisation is still relevant today. Just a few
short years ago, as Poland prepared for its European
Union application, I observed the stark divide between
the commercialisation of the city centres and farmland
that was still being worked by horse-drawn machinery,
its workers untouched by the arrival of urban capitalism
(a situation Shindō also observed in China some years
after this film was made). Shindo himself talks of
the film as a portrayal of life dependent on labour,
and the idea that "human behaviour essentially
stems from the task of survival," reflecting his
own political concerns with those struggling at the
bottom of the social hierarchy.
The
film's minimalist approach and political undertones
have nonetheless had their detractors, most of whom
seem to have completely missed the point and taken the
story and characters at face value, seeing the lack
of dialogue as an inability to communicate and the presentation
of the primitive lifestyle as a rejection of modernity
in favour of older, simpler times. The family's brief
flirtation with progressive Japanese society midway
through the film is definitely a jolt, as
they travel on a fuel-driven boat, observe a downright
peculiar dance/aerobics display on a shop window TV,
and eat a café meal using western cutlery instead
of chopsticks. But it seems to have escaped the notice
of the detractors that a later tragedy is brought
about in part because of the family's
disconnection with regular society. Shindo
presents their way of life in starkly honest terms,
with both the positive and negative aspects plainly
on display. For the family here, life is about survival
– it's hard work and fraught with possible danger – but
it still represents a freedom that anyone tied to a company
and a mortgage and the trappings of modern western society
can only dream of achieving.
In Hadaka no shima Shindo created something
unique, a stripped-to-the-bone but richly humanist and
profoundly moving study of life and labour and the essentials
of survival that is a genuinely audio-visual experience,
from Kuroda Kiyomi's beautifully composed scope cinematography
and Toshio Enoki's purposeful editing to Hayashi Hikaru's
gorgeous score – soulfully reflecting the family's toil
and trauma, it is at the same time both universal and
somehow specifically rooted in its location, as much
part of the storytelling as the movements of the actors.
Shindo has said that his intention was to create "a
visual poem." I can think of few films more deserving
of that description than this one.
The
print here has been licensed from Toho in Japan and
has been restored and remastered for this DVD. The result
is a mixture of good and bad news, but it's mostly good.
On the down side is the sometimes variable contrast
– blacks are almost never black, but on a few shots
the contrast is reduced to a narrow range of light grays.
This would seem to be an issue with the source material, as the contrast can be seen changing from shot
to shot in places, but this has not been adjusted at the remastering stage. The transfer is occassionally
a little on the bright side, though some of this may
have been an intentional aspect of the original film
to emphasise the heat of the sun. Film splices can also
be intermittently seen at the top and bottom of frame. That
aside, the anamorphically enhanced 2.35:1 print is otherwise
very nice indeed, with an often impressive tonal range
and very good detail. There is occasional dust and damage,
but this is minimal and never distracting. Contrast
issues aside, even Criterion would not be displeased
with the print here.
The
original mono soundtrack is reproduced in Dolby 1.0
and is a clean and largely clear affair. The usual age-related
issues regarding slight distortion of louder musical
notes is par for the course, but the score, which is
effectively the film's dialogue, comes over well
otherwise. On the whole a decent job.
A
video introduction is provided
by director and student of Japanese cinema Alex Cox. Filmed
in medium long shot from an angle that feels almost as
if we are eavesdropping on a conversation with an unseen
companion, it initially had me reaching for hair to tear
out simply because just about every adjective I'd jotted
down in my notes was also used by Cox, making it look
almost as if I'd gone straight to this feature instead of watching the film. But this did help to re-enforce
the fact that that Shindō's message is being clearly communicated through his minimalist approach. Though identified
as an introduction, I'd definitely watch this after seeing the film, as it contains some spoilers.
Given
the film's age and origin, it's something of a treat to
find included a commentary by director Shindō Kaneto and long time friend and composer
Hayashi Hikaro, recorded in Japan in 2000 shortly after
Shindō had completed work on Sanmon yakusha,
his film about the actor Taiji Tonoyama, one of the stars
of this film. Given that Shindō
was in his late 80s and Hayashi was knocking on the door
of 70 when this was recorded (you wouldn't know it from
listening to them, it has to be said), it's a surprisingly
chatty and lively affair, and a very informative one.
Inevitably, the music is discussed at some length – its
construction, effectiveness, and even the moment when
one of the French press at the Moscow Film Festival could
be heard whistling it between jobs under the impression
that it was the Japanese national anthem – but plenty
of background is also provided on the filming, the locations
and the island people who worked in and for the film.
Shindō also discusses the thinking behind his approach
and the importance of having the whole crew working along
the same lines. An enthralling and valuable commentary.
The Gallery feature 18 production
stills, 3 international posters and a poster for Sanmon
yakusha. The stills are of high quality and produced
close to full screen, a rare treat. It has to be said
that contrast on the stills is better than it is on the
film.
Also
included is an excellent 24 page booklet featuring a detailed
essay on the film by Acquarello, part of a detailed article
on Shindō by Joan Mellen (to be concluded on the Masters
of Cinema releases of Onibaba and Kuroneko)
and an excerpt of an interview with Shindo, conducted
by Mellen in 1972.
Noted
Japanese director Ōshima Nagisa has been dismissive of Hadaka no shima, saying that the film
reflected "the image foreign people hold of the Japanese."
As a westerner myself (albeit one who has done a fair
share of traveling in rural Japan), I am in no position
to contradict this, though a close friend who grew up
in just such an area in southern Japan in the 1950s and
60s felt that the portrayal of the people here was largely
accurate (she did take issue with the logic of aspects
of the couple's lifestyle, however, and did not pick up
on its symbolism). For many, though, this remains one
of the most poetically beautiful films yet to emerge from
Japan, and, minor print contrast issues aside,
it's a delight to see the film released in such impressive
shape with these special features. Unless Criterion get
hold of a new print and work the sort of wonders they
have on Kurosawa's Red Beard and The
Hidden Fortress, this looks set, for now at least,
to be the definitive DVD version of a genuinely extraordinary
work.
The Japanese convention of surname first has been used for all Japanese names in this review.
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