Sanka (1972) Kaneto Shindô, Nobuko Otowa, Tokuko Watanabe, Jiro Kawarazaki, Drama

Filmed on the virtually deserted Setonaikai archipelago in south-west Japan, The Naked Island was made — in the words of its director — “as a ‘cinematic poem’ to try and capture the life of human beings struggling like ants against the forces of nature”. Kaneto Shindo, director of Onibaba and Kuroneko, made the film with his own production company, Kindaï Eiga Kyokai, who were facing financial ruin at the time. Using one-tenth of the average budget, Shindo took one last impassioned risk to make this film. With his small crew, they relocated to an inn on the island of Mihari where, for two months in early 1960, they would make what they considered to be their last film. The Naked Island tells the story of a small family unit and their subsistence as the only inhabitants of an arid, sun-baked island. Daily chores, captured as a series of cyclical events, result in a hypnotising, moving, and beautiful film harkening back to the silent era. With hardly any dialogue, Shindo combines the stark ‘Scope cinematography of Kiyoshi Kuroda with the memorable score of his constant collaborator Hikaru Hayashi, to make a unique cinematic document.

Kaneto Shindo’s Kuroneko — released to great acclaim in 1968 — is a sparse, atmospheric horror story, ascribing to the director’s philosophy of using beauty and purity to evoke emotion. Eccentric and more overtly supernatural than its breakthrough companion piece, Onibaba (1964), Kuroneko revisits similar themes to reveal a haunting meditation on duty, conformity, and love.

The story tells of the adoration of Sasuke for his mistress, the blind samisen-teacher Shunkin, who treats him imperiously and subjects him to cruel beatings. After an unknown intruder probably one of her pupils, who seeks revenge for her cruel behaviour, pours boiling water on the sleeping Shunkin's face, Sasuke blinds himself in order not to behold her disfigurement. Sasuke's sacrifice, made in response to Shunkin's tacit wish, seals their life-long relationship.

A university student is kidnapped by young men in a car. No ransom is asked as the men are just bored roving thugs who have nothing better to do nor do they have any specific mission or purpose. Fasinated by the men's close bonds, the abused student slowly turns from victim to accomplice.

In this poetic and atmospheric horror fable, set in a village in war-torn medieval Japan, a malevolent spirit has been ripping out the throats of itinerant samurai. When a military hero is sent to dispatch the unseen force, he finds that he must struggle with his own personal demons as well. From Kaneto Shindo, director of the terror classic Onibaba, Kuroneko (Black Cat) is a spectacularly eerie twilight tale with a shocking feminist angle, evoked through ghostly special effects and exquisite cinematography.

Based on Nogami Yaeko’s original novel, The Neptune, which was based on real-life events, it follows four people stuck on a small fishing ship that is adrift at sea. After running out of fuel and losing their rudder in a storm, they find themselves lost with no navigation, and it’s during Obon, a religious Japanese holiday which means NO ONE will be out looking for them during the festival. They immediately split into two groups, the Captain and his young shipmate ( Taiji Tonoyama and Kei Yamamoto respectively), and headstrong Hachizo (Kei Satô) and Gorosuke (Nobuko Otowa) the woman who is corrupted by Hachizo as the film progresses….

Otowa is the teacher who returns to his home in Hiroshima only to find that the city hich has barely begun to heal from the consequences of the atomic bomb. As he gets in touch with some people he had thought lost, we see the devastation inflicted on not only Hiroshima's people and building but also on the Japanese psyche. It's story told with compassion and a subtle use of flashbacks, Shindo's film is a haunting look at something many would rather forget or gloss over as a necessary act of evil during a terrible war. The film won Untied Nation award in 1956 organize by British Academy of Film and Television Arts.