Fresh from Berlin: Deep In The Valley review

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Atsushi Funahashi's third film, DEEP IN THE VALLEY, moves between fluidly between documentary and fiction, between a narrative of the here and the now and a throwback to a novel entitled Five Storey Pagoda by Rohan Koda written in 1888 which he fictionalises. A fiction, thus, within a fiction. The result is a film of grace and gentle optimism centring on a pagoda that once welded a community together.The ‘˜Valley' of the title is a neighbourhood called Yanaka in Tokyo, located in a deep gorge between two plateaus, and known as the temple town on account of its innumerable temples and graveyards. Somehow, it nestles in such as way that it is far removed from the din and bustle of the megapolis. Without completely escaping present-day influences, it has nonetheless retained an old-world charm where things move slowly, where people have time to live and where memories mean something.

Yanaka is where a five storey pagoda once stood, in the midst of the Yanaka cemetery. Built in the mid-17^th century, this spiritual spine of the neighbourhood, its pride, its anchor, was destroyed by fire, then rebuilt by Edo carpenters in 1791 in their characteristic style - that is, with pure timber and without a single spike. It survived earthquakes and wars before being burned down once again in 1957. Rumour had it that a laundryman and his mistress committed suicide by setting themselves on fire and, in the process incinerating the temple as well.

The rebuilding of the temple some day in the future is the focus of DEEP IN THE VALLEY. The temple is today a memory for the older generation who remember it, it is the fulcrum of their sense of belonging, of the need to perpetuate a heritage which in so many ways was the conscience-keeper of a community. There is, of course, little sense of attachment to a non-existent structure among the young. But a young girl working for what appears to be a tiny NGO dedicated to restoring home movies, learns of the pagoda and sets about finding any documents, photographs and other material. She visits Buddhist monks, a near-blind caretaker of the graveyard, a local historian and traditional craftsmen (calligraphers, makers of masks and emblems poles) and falls in love with a street punk.

The film is not as simple as this sounds. Interwoven into the narrative is yet another narrative, taken from Koda's classic work of fiction. In it, a young carpenter, Jubei, hopes to rebuild the pagoda in the face of opposition from his boss, his wife and his co-workers. The fact that the same actor plays the punk and Jubei allows the film to move seamlessly from one era to another.

Shot in black-and-white, DEEP IN THE VALLEY makes a forceful point about cultural memory and what it means to people in the gentlest of ways. Every movement of the camera is filled with reverence for all that it looks upon: the sky, the houses, the trees, stones, letters, graveyards, the cleaning of a tombstone, the opening of a gate, the shaving of wood by the carpenter, the cycling through town. Black-and-white is retained for both narratives (except for shots of fiery red cherry trees and the conflagration which burns done the pagoda) and serves their purpose well. Understated, never didactic, the films draws the past into the lives of its young, present-day protagonists, luring them to discover it and to find themselves. "When we think about the past," writes Funahashi, "we not only feel melancholy about what has been lost, but we also appreciate what has been inherited and transformed into the modern world. It is an act of re-evaluating commonalities between different times, which I sought to explore in this film. Once upon a time there was a pagoda in Yanaka. People used to look up at it all the time. They always admired it and became fascinated. The beautiful nature of this gaze is something we might have forgotten today."

Deep in the Valley (Yanaka Boshoku)

Director: Atsushi Funahashi

Country: Japan

Year: 2009

Duration: 135 mins