The Naked Island

A family of four on a small island with no fresh water. Husband and wife row to the mainland every day, carry water back, pour it bucket by bucket onto the terraced field, and do the same thing again the next day. The film is almost entirely made of that repetition. It is not interested in the literature of poverty. It is interested in the physical fact of labour: the act of pouring water is repeated so often that the audience starts to feel it in the wrist. Even when disaster arrives the work does not stop; the next morning the buckets go up again. The form is radical. There is next to no speech and no dialogue at all. The story is carried by Hikaru Hayashi's music and the rhythm of movement. The production story is the film's reason for existing. Kindai Eiga Kyokai, the independent company Kaneto Shindo helped found in 1950, was close to bankruptcy by 1960, and Shindo decided to make one last film with what money was left. It worked abroad: at the 2nd Moscow International Film Festival in 1961 it shared the Grand Prix with Grigori Chukhrai's Clear Skies, and the money from foreign distribution rights kept the company alive. Nobuko Otowa and Taiji Tonoyama star. Who it is for: anyone drawn to silent cinema, to the rhythm of daily labour, and to Japanese independent film. Who it is not for: viewers who want dialogue and plot. The film repeats one action on purpose, and makes the audience live through the repetition too.