Live stream preview

Watch this video and more on OVID.tv

Watch this video and more on OVID.tv

Start your free trial

Already subscribed? Sign in

Red Persimmons

Food Glorious Food! • 1h 30m

Directed by Shinsuke Ogawa, Peng Xiaolian • Documentary • 2001 • 90 minutes

The ostensible subject of this remarkably beautiful film is the growing, drying, peeling and packaging of persimmons in the tiny Japanese village of Kaminoyama. The inhabitants explain that it is the perfect combination of earth, wind and rain that makes their village's persimmons superior to those grown anywhere else, including the village just a few miles away. The film's larger subject, however, is the disappearance of Japan's traditional culture, the end of a centuries-old way of life.

Apart from its fascinating record of a vanishing way of life and its colorful anecdotes about human inventiveness, however, RED PERSIMMONS is a film of stunning visual beauty. Its scenes of time-lapse photography, whether revealing the gorgeous deep red-orange colors of the fruit in full blossom or drying after having been peeled, bathe the screen in radiant beauty.

"A moving, wistful look at the effulgent, eternal cycle of life and death."—Film Journal International

Tags
agriculture and food, agriculture1, anthropology, anthropology and archaeology, asia, business, change, countryisde, cultural anthropology, documentary, dvd, east asia, expository, farming, film, food, fruit, icarus films, japan, japanese, kaminoyama, labor and economics, labor studies, nature1, ogawa productions, organic and sustainable agriculture, ovid, ovid_ca, peng xiaolian, persimmons, red, red persimmons, rural life, s_0009, s_0065, s_0112, s_0166, s_0210, s_0427, shinsuke ogawa, title_nopqrs, title_r, traditional, video, way of life, world regions, yamagata

Up Next in Food Glorious Food!

  • The Raw and the Cooked: A Culinary Jo...
    1:23:38
    The Raw and the Cooked: A Culinary Jo...

    The Raw and the Cooked: A Culinary Jo...

    Directed by Monika Treut • Documentary • With Robin Winkler, Pannai, Huan-ru Ke, Heng-hong Liu, Raymond Wu, Nabu, Fu-yu Wang Ladibisse, Joy Hui-yi Hu, Sumi • 84 minutes

    Taiwan is known around the world as having one of the most diverse cuisines in Asia, and food is the foremost passion of its 23...

  • Our Blood is Wine
    1:17:34
    Our Blood is Wine

    Our Blood is Wine

    Directed by Emily Railsback • Documentary • With Jeremy Quinn, Ramaz Nikoladze, Giorgi Natenadze, Mariam Iosebidze, Luarsab Togonidze • 2018 • 78 minutes

    Filmmaker Emily Railsback and award-winning sommelier Jeremy Quinn provide intimate access to rural family life in the Republic of Georgia as ...

  • Evolution of Organic
    1:26:32
    Evolution of Organic

    Evolution of Organic

    Directed by Mark Kitchell • Documentary • 2017 • 87 minutes

    EVOLUTION OF ORGANIC brings us the story of organic agriculture, told by those who built the movement. A motley crew of back-to-the-landers, spiritual seekers and farmers' sons and daughters rejected modern chemical farming and set out ...

×