Tree Without Leaves

Haru is a screenwriter grown old. For many years he wrote for films. Now he wants to write his first novel. For that he withdraws to woodland in Nagano. He works alone and sees nobody. What he means to write is his own family. He will set down the house he grew up in and the people in it. He is the last one left of that family. Mother, father and siblings are long dead. As he writes the past comes back to life. Scenes from childhood cut in. His relationship with his mother sits at the centre. The film takes remembering itself as its subject. Keiju Kobayashi, Nobuko Otowa and Meiko Kaji appear in the hundred and five minute film, a Japanese production Kaneto Shindō finished in 1986.