A melancholic, nickelodeon arcade melody plays against the suffused, dreamlike image of a slow-circling merry-go-round, as a curious assortment of characters seated on the carousel gradually come into focus, then recede, before re-emerging again within the stationary frame. The nostalgic, surreal episode carries through to the voice-over narration of an aging author named Hatsu-rojin (Keiju […]
In the midst of a devastating civil war, a band of desperate, battle-fatigued mercenaries led by a ruthless and opportunistic warrior (Rokko Toura) chance upon an isolated hut on the rural outskirts of Kyoto and begin to ransack the property in search of food and water. Encountering a peasant woman named Yone (Nobuko Otowa) and […]
In an open field of a remote village in ancient Japan, two disoriented, exhausted soldiers attempt to evade the pursuit of relentless horsemen from a rival samurai clan, collapsing amidst the tall, overgrown reeds of the prairie. After the threat of capture has seemingly subsided, the pair attempt to continue on their desperate flight, but […]
At sunrise, the nearly indistinguishable silhouettes of a peasant man (Taiji Tonoyama) and woman (Nobuko Otowa) are observed on the horizon as they navigate their modest rowboat through the tranquil waters. Arriving on the main island, the couple disembark from their boat carrying large water barrels and walk along a footpath towards the freshwater reservoir […]
Children of the Hiroshima opens to a shot of healthy children performing calisthenics in the schoolyard of an idyllic fishing village before being dismissed by their schoolteacher, Takako (Nobuko Otowa) for summer recess. Since the loss of her parents and sister four years earlier in the bombing of Hiroshima, Takako has remained on the island […]
From the opening image of the first witness called to testify in Bamako, the village griot – a tribal ancient and tale teller who passes on his culture’s collective history from generation to generation through the orality of ancient chants – who, paradoxically, is unable to communicate his testimony (and, in broader implication, the testimony […]