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Red Persimmons

Films from 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

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