Oshin

Yamagata, the winter of 1907. Seven year old Oshin is sent away to work in another household because her family cannot feed her; she walks there through the snow and stays as a servant. The film was made for the thirtieth anniversary of the NHK serial that began in 1983 and marked a whole generation in Japan, and the screenplay is by Sugako Hashida, who wrote the series too. Where the serial covered Oshin's entire life, the film stays inside her childhood. Kokone Hamada was chosen for the part from more than two thousand four hundred candidates. It does not reach for pathos; it holds a steady tone and shows what poverty does to a child day by day.