Kaneto Shindô-Hadaka no shima ('Naked Island') (1960)

Filmed on the virtually deserted Setonaikai archipelago in south-west Japan, The Naked Island was made — in the words of its director — “as a ‘cinematic poem’ to try and capture the life of human beings struggling like ants against the forces of nature”. Kaneto Shindo, director of Onibaba and Kuroneko, made the film with his own production company, Kindaï Eiga Kyokai, who were facing financial ruin at the time. Using one-tenth of the average budget, Shindo took one last impassioned risk to make this film. With his small crew, they relocated to an inn on the island of Mihari where, for two months in early 1960, they would make what they considered to be their last film. The Naked Island tells the story of a small family unit and their subsistence as the only inhabitants of an arid, sun-baked island. Daily chores, captured as a series of cyclical events, result in a hypnotising, moving, and beautiful film harkening back to the silent era. With hardly any dialogue, Shindo combines the stark ‘Scope cinematography of Kiyoshi Kuroda with the memorable score of his constant collaborator Hikaru Hayashi, to make a unique cinematic document. Masters of Cinema




Shindo, who had worked with both Kenji Mizoguchi and Kon Ichikawa, shot to international fame with the astounding Children of Hiroshima (1952). Eight years later, the BAFTA-nominated The Naked Island won the Grand Prix at Moscow International Film Festival (where Luchino Visconti was a jury member). It is now considered to be one of Shindo’s major works, and its success saved his film company from bankruptcy. The experience of making The Naked Island led Shindo to appreciate ‘collective film production’, and has been his preferred method of making films ever since. Masters of Cinema




Deals with the intolerably hard life of a family of four, the only inhabitants of a very small Japanese island in the Setonaikai archipelago. Several times a day they row over to the neighboring island to fetch water for their miserable fields. One day the boys catch a big fish, which is sold in the city. Shortly after, the older boy falls ill. The father is desperately trying to find the doctor, while Taro is dying. After the funeral which is attended by the dead boy's classmates, the mother experiences a short fit of rebellion against their hard fate. But then resumes watering the plants. (http://imdb.com/title/tt0056049/plotsummary)




The photography, music, and restrained acting are perfection itself. The lack of dialogue helps, rather than hinders, its beautiful, simple story. It has captured a Japanese way of life and culture (actually lived by the director–-the movie was made as a tribute to his parents) forever and in the very highest artistic sense. The movie is so genuine, so sympathetic to its participants and subject matter, that the viewer is softly, irresistibly, drawn in to share their travails. (http://imdb.com/title/tt0056049/usercomments)




It's showing everything essential cinema can show: Life, conditions of life, feelings of those who are living, and it's showing it in a very good way. This is a touching and oppressive movie which could maybe even be used as an historical document (for history of the Japanese island farmers in the middle of the XX century) , but also as an intense fiction. (http://imdb.com/title/tt0056049/usercomments)