The Magino Village Story – Raising Silkworms
(Magino Monogatari – Yosan-hen: Eiga no tame no eiga)
Screening on Film
Directed by Shinsuke Ogawa.
Japan, 1977, 16mm, color, 112 min.
Japanese with English subtitles.
Japan, 1977, 16mm, color, 112 min.
Japanese with English subtitles.
For Ogawa’s new series in Yamagata, the collective again lived with its subjects, this time in a small silkworm barn borrowed from a farmer-poet. They converted it into a home and film studio, where anywhere from ten to twenty-five men, women and children lived and worked. After moving, Ogawa immediately entered into a mental slump. His wife spearheaded this film, partly hoping to revitalize the depressed director. A look at the local raising of silkworms, the charming film deploys many of the filmmaking strategies which would reappear in subsequent work.