The Naked Island: The Poetry of Life and Death review

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if you believe in the poetry of everyday life, watching The Naked Island could be a memorable experience, writes Bikas Mishra

Cinema as a medium has been rapidly undergoing a transformation. In the era of Terminators and Jurassic Parks, we might feel that it’s the new technology that empowers cinema. If you’ve been feeling so and want to experience the power of cinematic images in their austerity, go and watch..... The Naked Island.

I first watched the film exactly ten years back in our small film society, courtesy Japan Culture Centre. The Naked Island was probably the first non Hollywood International film I had ever seen. For me till that time only two kinds of cinema existed. Good films and “art films”. Art films, which were telecast on Doordarshan and where every moment was prolonged and people generally didn’t speak much. Honestly even this was not an opinion that was my own but that was the perception in the air about so called “parallel” cinema in my small town.

The Island took me by surprise. It was a “slow”, “arty” and likable film. The film narrates a fairly simple story of a family comprising of a couple and their two young sons. They live in a Japanese Island in Setonaikai archipelago. The family’s life is marked by utter hardship, they row a wooden boat and get water from a neighboring Island. Their toil is shown in detail through close-ups.

The life of the family is quite repetitive and monotonous. Film begins before the sunrise when the couple rows their boat and reaches the neighboring Island to draw water. Their little everyday joys involve hot water baths.

One of their sons attends a school, while the other spends time fishing and roaming around. The family decides to take a break from their routine life when the elder son catches a big fish. The entire family makes a trip to the neighboring island to sell and have a lavish lunch.

However the joy of celebration doesn’t last long and the elder son falls prey to a fatal illness. Story per se is not what distinguishes The Naked Island, it’s the austerity of the portrayal. Kaneto Shindô remains largely loyal to his documentary style. Film has no dialogue, though at times we crave for spoken words from the hardworking family.

Though at one level The Naked Island is about the hardship of survival of a family, at a different level it also tells the story of rebellion and subsequent submission to fate.

The Naked Island is a film that you can enjoy only if you’ve a taste for the “different” kind of cinema. For others it could be little drag, slow and repetitive. However if you believe in the poetry of everyday life, watching The Naked Island could be a memorable experience.

My rating: 3.5 stars

[imdb]0056049[/imdb]