Furuyashiki A Japanese Village

This is Ogawa Productions first major film from their Yamagata period They had already started photography on Magino Village A Tale but they were drawn to this village deep in the high country above Magino when a particularly cold bout of weather threatened crops Inevitably their attention strayed from the impact of weather and geography on the harvest to the life history of Furuyashiki Village On the one hand Ogawa returns to his roots by playing with the conventions of the science film At the same time he discovers a local peripheral space in which to think about the nation and the state of village Japan From this distant perspective in the very heart of the Japanese mountains Ogawa discovers a village still dealing with the trauma of global warfare and struggling for survival as their children flee for the cities