Thursday, June 18, 2015

"to be healed of their diseases" - An Eden in an Inland Sea

Tokyo



An Eden in an Inland Sea


There is a very unique Japanese film made in 1960.  It is titled Hadaka-no Shima (The Naked Island).

It was produced by an independent group concerned with the film business at costs just 10% of those needed to produce an ordinary film.  Most of the scenes were taken on a small island in the Seto Inland Sea.  It was just a hat-like small round mountain with a diameter of 200 meters and a height of 50 meters.

In the small field on the top of the mountain lived a family, the husband and wife with two small boys.  The eldest son  was a second grader of a primary school in a big island nearby.  The couple also went to the the big island many times a day by small boat to fetch water in wooden caskets.  They carried up the caskets on foot to the agriculture field on the top of their island to feed plants.    It was hard work to bring up two caskets using a shouldering pole at one time, carefully walking up a steep slope from the shore.

In the island, there was no electricity, no gas, no water supply, and no telephone.  The family supported themselves, though a city on the mainland Japan 1 km over the sea was under economic development.  The husband and wife looked like actually tenant farmers, so that they brought a harvest to the land lord or the owner of the island living in the big island twice a year to get money.

The regions surrounding the Seto Inland Sea with full of small islands have comparatively small rains.  So, Japanese audiences who see this movie can understand the toil of carrying water from the adjacent island.  As the date was 1960, there must have been no other ways but carry caskets with water up to the top of the island manually on foot.

There were almost no words.  Actors didn't speak.  Only sounds of the see, wind, and the nature were heard in addition to effective music.  But the scenery was fine, though it was mono-color.  If it was a color film, it would be more impressive with the surface of the sea shining or dormant, other small and still islands, and ranging green mountains in the mainland Japan observed from the top of the island.

This film was not accepted widely in Japan.  But it won many awards in foreign film festivals in early 1960s.   The independent group had initially thought this film would be their last one.  But they got income enough to sustain their activities as they could sell distribution rights to foreign agencies.

Probably no Japanese audiences see existence of God in this film, but some Westerners might see how people should live under the  gaze of God in this film, though it is a very Japanese film.



http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/ryohma_1935/11063358.html


Though it seems sometimes that God shows no mercy to people, some families might be living in a kind of Eden while they don't realize it.





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Luk 6:17 And he came down with them, and stood in the plain, and the company of his disciples, and a great multitude of people out of all Judaea and Jerusalem, and from the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, which came to hear him, and to be healed of their diseases;
Luk 6:18 And they that were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed.