Cycling in the mountains near Tokyo, I often have two thoughts: First, I feel sorry for big-city denizens missing all the natural beauty so near. Second, I wonder how the locals can wrest a living from their tiny fields and orchards, perched precariously on the slopes.
Both thoughts are eloquently amplified and beautifully illustrated in Tetsuichiro Tsuta's "Iya Monogatari: Oku no Hito (The Tale of Iya)," winner of a Special Mention in the Asian Future section at last year's Tokyo International Film Festival. Set in Shikoku's Iya Valley, famed for its grandeur and remoteness, and shot in the now-rare medium of 35 mm film, it focuses on a people whose way of life is disappearing, even as refugees from the city arrive to preserve it.
This has long been a theme of Japanese films, documentaries included, but those expecting the usual sort of social realism had best be warned: TIFF's labeling of the 29-year-old Tsuta's second film as "fantasy/ science fiction" is close enough, though "science" does not come into the equation at all.