Letter From The Mountain (Takashi Koizumi, 2002)

[spindizzy]

Título: Letter From The Mountain Título V.O: Amida-do dayori Director: Takashi Koizumi Año/País: 2002 / Japón Duración: 128 minutos Género: Drama Reparto: Akira Terao, Kanako Higuchi, Shoji Arano Enlaces: Subs Ficha de: spindizzy

[spindizzy]

Sometimes, when I'm feeling overwhelmed by the ugliness of whatever Japanese cityscape I happen to be in, I try to imagine how the place might have looked in 1890. No concrete, no wires, no moldy stucco in cancerous shades of gray and brown. Instead just wood, straw, clay, bamboo and other natural materials that were once as abundant and cheap as dirt. Instantly, it becomes beautiful -- the fairyland of turn-of-the-century author Lafcadio Hearn's just-off-the-boat ravings (though Hearn left out the poverty, stink and disease).

Japan's long journey from garden spot to eyesore is the subject of Alex Kerr's brilliant, impassioned book "Dogs and Demons." Kerr's despairing assessment -- that the political, economic and cultural forces behind uglification are too powerful to stop -- is hard to argue with.

Right outside my window, workers are building new condos on a riverside plot that local residents (including this one) futilely petitioned be made into a park. But money talked, city officials walked and now concrete is being poured.

Takashi Koizumi's new film, "Amidado Dayori," about a middle-aged couple who find a second chance at life in a remote mountain village, would seem to be on Kerr's side, with its celebration of traditional lifestyles, natural beauty, the four seasons -- the whole package of what it has long meant to be a Japanese.

But it also illustrates one reason why the developers and their allies have had a free hand until recently in Nagano Prefecture, where the film is set; namely, the Japanese ability to focus on the pleasing and shut out the displeasing, however loudly the latter may shout to outsiders. The couple -- a research physician on the brink of a nervous breakdown and her even-tempered, ever-smiling novelist husband -- never encounter a power line, pachinko parlor or television set, though all three are ubiquitous in every hamlet in the country (save perhaps for the few that have been preserved as outdoor museums).

Instead they get in touch with their inner Japanese and heal spirits frazzled by the urban rat race (the physician's being far more frazzled than the husband's, but no matter). Worthy endeavors, but this pair floats above the surface of the community, much like retirees who settle into a rural paradise and remain serenely ignorant of their surroundings, until the plumbing breaks down or a resort hotel starts rising in their backyard. In "Amidado Dayori," we are shown, not the realities of starting a new life in the Nagano mountains -- even winter unfolds like a series of picture postcards -- but an ideal Japanesque existence in the cinematic equivalent of a theme park.

As the film begins, Takao (Akira Terao) and Michiko (Kanako Higuchi) have already pulled up their Tokyo roots and moved to a village that is Takao's ancestral home. They visit a thatched cottage that serves as a memorial shrine (amidado) for the village dead and chat with the attendant, the spry 96-year-old Oume (Tanie Kitabayashi). Together they admire the view -- from an inspiring distance. Oume, it turns out, is a kind of sage, whose thoughts and observations are a popular feature in a column in a local newsletter. Her amanuensis is a mute, sweetly smiling young woman named Sayuri (Manami Konishi), who is as devoted to Oume as Oume is to the souls of her beloved dead.

Takao also reunites with Koda-sensei (Takahiro Tamura), his beloved junior high-school teacher, now retired, who spends his day beating the futon with his wooden sword or practicing calligraphy in his tastefully decorated Japanese-style house, overlooking a picture-perfect Japanese garden. He and his devoted wife, Yone (Kyoko Kagawa), are always dressed elegantly in Japanese-style clothes and never touch anything electronic.

When they are not interacting with these and other villagers -- wonderful folks all -- Takao and Michiko take restful walks in the woods (with Michiko stopping once to ecstatically hug a tree), potter around their house (which has been in Takao's family for ages) and otherwise soothe away stress. Michiko makes a miraculous recovery from the panic attacks that drove her from her research work at a major Tokyo hospital, while Takao thinks about writing again, after selling nothing for years.

Like the late films of Koizumi's longtime mentor, Akira Kurosawa, "Amidado Dayori" doesn't have much of a plot. Takao builds a latrine for Oume, while Michiko treats patients in a makeshift office at the local elementary school. Then we learn that Koda is suffering from terminal cancer and that Sayuri's throat condition is worsening, requiring an operation. Michiko, who knows that condition best, is the obvious person to perform it, but has she regained the confidence she needs to wield the knife?

The film, however, is less a medical drama than a feature-length therapy for middle-aged urbanites who want to be reassured, after years of depressing headlines, that in Japan one can still find the best of all possible worlds -- for Japanese that is. Outlanders who lack Takao's furusato (hometown), Oume's simple faith or Koda's mastery of all things Japanese, including his manner of death, will probably feel excluded from the wa (circle of harmony) the film strives to create. But even most Japanese viewers are moving daily through the despoiled landscapes that Koizumi's camera carefully avoids, while experiencing his "real" Japan only in occasional glimpses.

Takao and Michiko can escape into the cinematic dreamscape of "Amidado Dayori," but for most of us it's like a visit to DisneySea. Nice while it lasts, but then it's time to battle the bumper-to-bumper traffic, through the Elysium that is Urayama.

Saludos!

[Battosai]

Te doy de nuevo las gracias, spindizzy, por darme a conocer una de la que ni había oído hablar y ha sido todo un acierto

Es de esas en las que aunque no pasa casi nada, el visionado es una delicia.

Mañana empiezo a traducirla

[pazguaton]

Esta peli es realmente deliciosa. No tenía muchas ganas de verla cuando me la propuso mi mujer, pero la verdad es que está muy bien, muy agradable, y además un reflejo bastante real de lo que ocurre con las poblaciones de montaña y su envejecimiento (que allí tienen unas cuantas )

Gracias por esos futuros, Batto.

Spin... no sé que es lo que has puesto en inglés (no lo he leído) pero como sea la sinopsis está contando la peli entera

[spindizzy]

Spin... no sé que es lo que has puesto en inglés (no lo he leído) pero como sea la sinopsis está contando la peli entera

Sip...es la sinopsis...bastante explícita por cierto.

[otto]

Bajando, gracias. Buscando una imagen mas grande para acompañar al ripeo, he encontrado el trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhrN3I4b_sk

[Desártico]

Pues yo también la he visto sin saber apenas nada sobre ella, y me ha enamorado desde el principio, con uno de esos amores pausados y silenciosos que, sin hacer ruido, le humedecen a uno el alma. Para una tarde tranquila en compañía de alguien a quien se quiera es una elección perfecta. 

[otto]

Preciosa película que se disfruta poco a poco tal marca el ritmo pausado de la misma, con una "abuelilla" deliciosa. Imprescindible

[garitero]

La imagen viva de esta película que todos debemos ver y disfrutar, sobre todo la gente que no ha ido al "pueblo". Todo el mundo alguna vez en la vida hemos querido mandar todo al carajo e irnos a un lugar así, donde, yo al menos, he disfrutado de enano. Donde la vida se vive, no se sufre. Donde todo lo que haces se refleja en algo, en la cara de tus vecinos, en la tuya propia, en la naturaleza. Una, no grande, sino hermosa película, que nos muestra que la vida, en tanto en cuanto más sencilla, más grata es de disfrutarla.
Maurazos, perdona por mangarte la foto, pero es que le va al pelo 

[maurazos]

Maurazos, perdona por mangarte la foto, pero es que le va al pelo 

No hay nada que perdonar. Al contrario, gracias por utilizarla para ilustrar tu comentario de la película, que por cierto no conocía y tiene buena pinta, así que ya estoy tardando en bajármela.

Un saludo

[maurazos]

Y después de verla, suscribo todo lo que habéis dicho sobre esta peli. Tal vez sea lenta, pero no llega a cansar ni a desesperar, por esos paisajes tan soberanamente bien captados y esa atmósfera de tranquilidad y buen rollo que transmite en todo momento. Es una de esas pelis que te reconstruyen el alma y suponen un aporte a la paz interior.

Voto "imprescindible".

¡Muchas gracias, Spindizzy!

Saludos

[MieMie]

Coincido con todos las valoraciones positivas.

Una película para "respirar", para recordar la importancia de la sabiduría de los mayores, para olvidar las prisas y centrarnos en los pequeños detalles y las cosas que dan sentido a la vida.

MieMie.

[hokusai_spain]

Me ha gustado bastante, transmite una sensación de tranquilidad que reconforta y te hace pensar que hay algo más que el ajetreado mundo que llevamos.

Merece la pena verla.

[TrentReznor]

se me paso en su dia, pero despues de estos comentarios, la pongo a bajar.

gracias por la ficha y los subs!

[nicolasss]

me ha parecido una pelicula notable, bellamente dirigida, una de esas peliculas sobre el modo de vida en el campo que tan bien se les da a los Japoneses, pero que evade los lugares comunes de las que a veces pecan estas peliculas gracias a un muy buen trabajo de desarrollo de personajes