A Distant Cry from Spring

I'm not a native English speaker, I'm not gonna irritate the movie.

This is my favorite movie of all time. I've watched it for ten times or more. It is simple, no trick, no extra adornment. Both the story and the scenery in Hokkaido will purify my mind, and they give me warmth at the time when I am most alone. There is no "bad people" in this movie. It's just natural. People are kind, hard-working, willing to help. This movie was produced in 1980. Maybe it was a golden time for the development of Hokkaido. There were beautiful farms, crops, animals, and hopes that would make people beautiful.

Although I've never been to Japan, this movie alone is enough for me to long for Japan. This is the kind of beauty I appreciate from Japanese movies, literature and paintings. Maybe it's a distant cry from the blue mountains, over the vigorous fields, but it is so close to my heart.

I really love this movie, it's not a style for everyone, I just want to write some thing in my mind.

This film is basically a remake of the famous american western "Shane" (1953) but for some mysterious reasons all connections between these tho films are ignored or hushed up.

Both films feature a stranger in a rural "western" setting who ends up at a families house and starts to bond with them (especially the son) and working for them while trying to protect his secret.

Now this is far worse than the original as is almost always the case when "remaking" something that was already great.

There are barely any (beautiful) shots of the nature or the countryside in this film. The son is raised by a very argumentative, b*tchy single-mom, so the original main motif of male friendship and brotherhood between the stranger and the father are non-existent.

Having a really uncharismatic woman as a mc in a film that tries to copy american western movies is definitely such a great decision that I must draw my head.

If you don't believe me, just watch Shane by the love of god and you'll see.

I first saw this film at the Hong Kong International Film Festival in 1981 and have often looked for it since (without any luck). Of the 50 films I saw in those 16 days (including masterpieces by Angelopoulos, and Syberberg's Hitler, A Film From Germany), Yamada's simple story turned out to be my favorite. When it recently turned up in a 5-disk Yoji Yamada box set, I immediately ordered it. Well, the disk is very poor quality, a murky transfer with the widescreen compositions butchered by a truly wretched pan-and-scan job -- and yet the quality of the film still manages to shine through.

On its surface, there's nothing particularly remarkable about A Distant Cry From Spring. A widow struggles to maintain a small farm in a remote area of Hokkaido, fighting the elements and raising her young son. One brutally stormy night, a stranger appears at the door looking for shelter. Though wary, the widow offers him her hospitality. He leaves, but then returns in the spring and asks for work, desiring only room and board in return. What follows is the depiction of a slowly developing emotional bond set against a beautifully observed portrait of daily life on the farm, an endless round of backbreaking chores which constantly threaten to overwhelm the lonely woman.

There is nothing terribly surprising in the revelations which eventually emerge about the characters, but they are so finely drawn and their emotional lives resonate with such authenticity, that only a cold-blooded viewer could fail to be moved by the film's resolution.

Yamada is a master of emotional nuance and a brilliant observer of the small details of ordinary lives, which he obviously holds in some kind of awe, and in which he finds a kind of magic. He makes you feel for the characters without ever stooping to sentimentality or easy manipulation. His work deserves to be more widely known, and he certainly deserves better treatment from DVD distributors.

The very slow pace challenged me (as sometimes happens when I'm not in the ideal mood for a slower film), but it's subtle in a way that largely works, has beautiful visuals, and Chieko Baisho is as good as always.

I can see why her and Yoji Yamada collaborated dozens of times over so many decades, because her acting and his direction always seems to work so well together.

It's also always fun to see Kiyoshi Atsumi show up in a more serious Yamada film and bring a small amount of levity to a scene or two. As is the case with Yoji Yamada, A Distant Cry from Spring is worth watching because it's by the filmmaker alone; his stuff is always worthwhile.

A widowed mother lives with his only son of 8 in a remote place of a village, takes care her farm full of cows and crops. She works hard especially in the springs. One rainy night an unknown man comes to take shelter and goes away the next morning. He comes back after some days and tells that he will work with her in exchange of his shelter. The woman takes him as a salaried staff. The man and the woman work a lot in the farm. Day by day the unknown and mysterious man win the heart of the mother and son both. But everything is not everlasting. The man must have to leave for a reason. What is the reason? Why he came here?

One of the best drama movies ever. The place where the movie is located is such a great place full of natural elements. I love this movie. Recommended.