This article is within the scope of WikiProject Japan, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Japan-related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project, participate in relevant discussions, and see lists of open tasks. Current time in Japan: 07:58, July 8, 2024 (JST, Reiwa6) (Refresh)JapanWikipedia:WikiProject JapanTemplate:WikiProject JapanJapan-related articles
I don't know how to write movie reviews for readers, but I think I can help writers:
Superficially, the movie is a sob story about one's ancestors. It is really more like Herman Melville.
It starts "100 years ago, in the North of Japan". It is not about Japan. It is about humanity in our normal state.
The unusual thing about it is that people had gone from primitive survival agriculture to making sophisticated movies about it, almost within the memory of individuals. It is a movie about how life is when there is not an industrial revolution. Many people in the world are still equally poor and technically primitive, but they are, no longer, so well adjusted to it, and they will never have a chance to make movies about it. We can hope that, when things stop changing so quickly, human life will return to being similar to that in this movie, rather than ending. David R. Ingham06:45, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]