Home from the Sea

It's a bit risky to give an unqualified thumbs up to any film -- there are pros out there who could slice me and dice me and serve me for lunch. Nevertheless, this time I'm playing it straight. This was one of the greatest films in my experience.

I saw it once, probably in 1973, on impulse. I had seen and immediately appreciated the Samurai genre in the Japanese theater (since converted into a 5 or 6 plex ordinary commercial theatre) in San Francisco. The then-newer sword films, in color, were especially impressive. Seems to me "Diva" owes a lot to those movies, in terms of beautiful scenes, but it didn't really compare. Maybe "Un Coeur en Hiver" is a better example. Anyhow, I found myself quite sympathetic to the Japanese feeling and aesthetic, so I would often drop in, willing to see anything that theatre was screening.

"Home from the Sea" is not anything to do with Samurai or swords, no physical violence. It is a "simple" story of a contemporary family's livelihood, and a change in circumstances that industry and society imposed on them, destroying that way of life. The family's responses to the change were what made this film great (not that the cinematic craft wasn't superb!)