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 has been a favorite of mine since I first saw it over 30 years ago. It is an ordinary love story told in such beautiful narrative. Both leads are excellent especially the female lead. I think she and Setsure Hara are the two actresses that best embodied the Japaneae women postwar.

Recently quite a few films by the great Yoji Yamada has been released on blu Rays, including yellow Hankerchief and a distant cry from the mountain. I also want. To recommend another film coscripted by Yamada, Castle of Sand, recently restored and released on blu ray. These films are so much different from the Hollywood blockbusters and offer some have satisfaction after each viewing. Remarkable.

This is my favorite of the films I've seen by director Yoji. Its a simple story, but its so well put together and the two leads, Ken Takakura and Chicko Baisho, both of whom have acted in Yoji films, give straightforward but heartfelt performances. Ms. Baisho's character is a widow with a young child running a farm in northern Japan. On a very rainy night Mr. Takskura's character appears, asking to spend the night. He stays on as a hired hand. The best thing is that there is not a cliché to be found in this film. As the hired hand came from parts unknown and does not appear to have anywhere to go, you wonder where he came from. You find out eventually, but I want you to see this film for the superb direction, story and acting. I really liked Mr. Yoji's "The Yellow Handkerchief" (which Mr. Takakura also gave a stellar performance), but I loved this film. Highly recommended.

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.

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.