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

Japan • 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 Japan

  • The Written Face
    1:29:16
    The Written Face

    The Written Face

    Directed by Daniel Schmid • Documentary • With Tamasaburo Bando • 1999 • 89 minutes

    In Japanese theater women's roles are traditionally played by men. The man playing the woman's role, the Onnagata, does not imitate the woman, as in the West, but tries to capture her significance. He need not st...

  • Tatsumi
    1:45:04
    Tatsumi

    Tatsumi

    Directed by Eric Khoo • Animation • 2014 • 98 minutes

    TATSUMI celebrates the life and work of Japanese comics artist Yoshihiro Tatsumi-a manga pioneer who elevated the genre to a new level of creative expression and adult realism. A comics-crazed teenager, Tatsumi began to get published and was ...

  • Tokyo Waka
    1:02:48
    Tokyo Waka

    Tokyo Waka

    Directed by John Haptas and Kristine Samuelson • Documentary • 2013 • 63 minutes

    Tokyo is a digital metropolis and wellspring of spectacular pop culture, its commercial crossroads carpeted with people day and night. Above them, watching from perches on buildings and power lines, are more than 20...

×