Ishiro Honda's second feature film is a marked step down from his rather accomplished melodrama and freshman picture, The Blue Pearl. Also taking place in a remote corner of rural Japan, The Skin of the South, tries a similar balance between local flavor, concerns, and romance, but fumbles the last part rather starkly. Really the story of a Cassandra trying to get the people of a small community to see the future that only he can see, it suddenly becomes an overbusy romance for a solid third of the film's runtime. It's inelegant, at best.
In an impoverished corner of Kagoshima, Ohno (Hajime Izu) leads a small research group into the soil composition of the mountain above the village. Poised with his research and the recent example of another village that was wiped out by a landslide, Ohno has to convince the village to not only stop deforesting the mountain but also to relocate the village completely. This effort on Ohno's part, mostly captured in his interactions with Nonaka (Yoshio Kosugi), the developer who has hired a large number of hands to do the deforestation work. This dance between them, trying to influence and even manipulate the village locals and elders is the most interesting part of the film.
Where the film stumbles is in the aforementioned romantic angle. There are four primaries in it (a minor character even calls it a love square), Ohno, his assistant Takayama (Shunji Kasuga), the local girl Keiko (Harue Tone), and the new research assistant Sadae (Yasuko Fujita). Essentially, Ohno and Sadae fall for each other when Sadae shows up, but they don't do anything about it. Takayama loves Sadae, but he doesn't do anything about it. Ohno is also infatuated by Keiko who has a tragic background (involving a rape and the death of her parents) that has left her mute though enigmatic at the same time. In addition, Sadae's uncle shows up with a suitor who happens to be the man who raped Keiko. The vast majority of all of this, including little interactions around Sadae defending Keiko to some degree, happens just after the halfway point in a concentrated dose of storytelling that seems so disconnected from everything else. The business man having nothing to do with Nonaka, for instance, makes it stand apart.
The Cassandra element comes back for the final act, and I was honestly not sure if Ohno would be shown justified in his fears or not. Of course, I could have asked if the promise for special effects was going to follow through or not. It's also where all of the characters get moments either heroic or tragic depending on who they are. It's a spectacular little finish to the film, and it takes on a curious message in the end.
There's one very minor character with a single line of dialogue in the whole film. At a village meeting, he sets aside all of the concerns people have and said that there's no competing with Nature, that if Nature decides it is time for the mountain to collapse, then there is nothing that humanity can do about it. It's also noted, that the special effects of the film show that landslides can happen even in places where no deforestation have started. It's ultimately a portrait of humanity's impotence in the face of Nature's power. That does seem to be the central motif and theme which is why the whole romance angle unsatisfies so much. It just feels like random romantic offshoots in a story that's not about anything. I suppose that Takayama and what happens to him could fit in, but it's a stretch and minor since Ohno is the main character and his romantic pulls are surprisingly weak in general.
Anyway, it's a mix. It doesn't really work as a whole because of the romance which dominates a large section, but the Cassandra elements work decently especially when combined with the mostly implicit ideas around the power of Nature. The special effects stuff is also quite nice with some good use of miniatures that I always appreciate and that Honda would become well-known for. There's nothing wrong with any of the performances, and Honda keeps his nice eye to retain visual interest throughout. But, it also just feels like too much squeezed into too small a space.
