The Tale of Iya

In the Iya valley, one of the least touched regions in Japan, an old man lives with his granddaughter Haruna. Their life is plain: the mountain, the fields, the seasons. A tunnel project to be opened into the region threatens that order. A man who comes from Tokyo meets them and starts looking at his own life differently. Tetsuichirō Tsuta's film runs close to three hours and uses that length deliberately; what is described is place, weather and time rather than event. The images are the film's real language. Its subject is the emptying of the countryside, tradition that cannot be carried on, and what development costs. The telling neither makes village life quaint nor offers it as something to be saved. Rina Takeda plays Haruna.