Cast overview: | |||
Nobuko Otowa | ... | Toyo, the mother | |
Taiji Tonoyama | ... | Senta, the father | |
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Shinji Tanaka | ... | Tarô - the elder son |
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Masanori Horimoto | ... | Jirô - the younger son |
Deals with the intolerably hard life of a family of four, the only inhabitants of a very small Japanese island in the Setonaikai archipelago. Several times a day they row over to the neighboring island to fetch water for their miserable fields. Written by Michael Jurich <jurich@rummelplatz.uni-mannheim.de>
I saw this movie twenty years ago and I still remember it fondly. It should be part of the training of movie directors to see and analyze this movie. The naked island (as it was named in France) shows the hard struggle of a fisherman's family to survive in a very harsh environment. It is very emotional yet does not call on any modern artifice to carry the message. The music will stay with you forever. My only regret is that I can't get a copy to show my children what movie making can be.