Red
Persimmons
by Shinsuke
Ogawa and Peng Xiaolian
Distributed by First Run/Icarus Films,
Brooklyn NY, 2001
VHS, 90 minutes, color
Sales: $440
Distributor’s website: http://www.frif.com.
Reviewed by Soo C. Hostetler
Department of Art, University of Northern
Iowa, USA
soo.hostetler@uni.edu
This documentary film was initially started
in 1984 by Shinsuke Ogawa (1935-1992)
but was later finished by Peng Xiaolian,
his Chinese discipline, in 2001. It very
beautifully portrays the process of growing,
cultivating, and marketing the red persimmons
in the northern districts of Japan. Ogawa’s
main purpose in producing this film was
to document and thereby preserve a vanishing
Japanese tradition. He also shares his
impressions of a culture that embraces
the unity and harmony of nature and humanity.
Persimmons are the main source of income
for the tiny village of Kaminoyama. The
process of growing, peeling, drying, and
packaging this crop is filmed in a way
that uniquely captures the character of
the people and their way of life. The
film illustrates their simple, daily routine
of hard work as they both perform and
talk about their centuries-old farming
methods.
It is obvious that these people have great
respect for the land that was passed down
to them from their ancestors as is evident
in the way in which they proudly share
their knowledge of utilizing its natural
elements to successfully bring a crop
to market. They express their fortune
of having ideal conditions for growing
the sweetest tasting persimmons in the
region.
The film shows the development of the
"peeler" from the process of
using a single-blade knife, to a crank-style
peeler made with spare bicycle parts,
to the invention of electric peelers as
the villagers strive to modernize their
technology, and thereby to improve their
production. The filmmaker’s idea
of tracing the development of the peeler
is a wonderful way to show the progressive
innovations of the villagers as they invent
better and better mechanical means.
Peng Xiaolian, who returned to the village
15 years after Shinsuke Ogawa finished
his original filming, directed the final
episodes of this documentary. He successfully
concluded the film by paying homage to
the passage of time, and by honoring some
of the deceased villagers and the gradual
(and inevitable) extinction of their former
way of life. Over the years, many of the
younger people had chosen to move away,
which left the older people to continue
their traditional way of life alone. It
is obvious that both directors developed
a close personal attachment to the people
who appeared in the film.
One of the film’s highlights is its
cinematic portrayal of the visual beauty
of nature, such as the way in which it
shows the changing lights and shadows
of the drying process, which were filmed
by time-lapse photography. The contrast
of the persimmons, which evolve from a
fresh colorful red to a dried fructose
brown, is simply gorgeous. The film’s
music enhances the beauty of nature and
also helps to underscore the spirit of
the culture.
As the film ended, I myself (in part because
of my own Asian origins) was left with
an awful sense of remorse in response
to the extinction of a traditional culture.
At the same time, I felt fortunate to
have had the opportunity to have been
there, if only vicariously, to witness
all this through the eyes of the two directors,
Shinsuke Ogawa and Peng Xiaolian.
(Reprinted by permission from Ballast
Quarterly Review, Volume 20, Number
4, Summer 2005.)
