On the Program

This program is an entirely new kind of dramatic presentation. Instead of dramatizing a novel in the conventional way, viewers are invited to create their own images while listening to a reading of the original text. The director has filmed an actor reading in locations related to the story. Viewers experience the power of the original text while enjoying images woven in by the director. Viewers enter a pure world of imagery that transcends simple dramatization. The actors do not present the story; rather, the work is completed in the personal imaginations of the viewers.

Nobuhiko Obayashi, one of Japan’s foremost film directors, chose Tetsuo Miura’s novel, Shinobugawa (1960), as the basis for his experiment. The novel, which won the Akutagawa Prize, depicts a young couple, one a student, the other a girl working in a small restaurant, who fall in love and marry.

Only two actors appear: the reader and a young woman. The woman serves two functions: she listens to the reader, and presents an image of the girl in the novel. This silent character serves as an intermediary between the reader and the viewer, broadening the scope of the work.

Director's Notes

One of the devices I used in this program was to have the character Shino simply listen to the reader. Sitting by the side of the first-person protagonist who reads the story, she becomes both the apparition of the ‘I’ who reads, and a character within the story. The reader simply reads, and Shino simply listens, within a context that changes from scene to scene. I thought that the use of this observer would give the audience a greater emotional charge while giving the reader greater depth as the drama unfolds.

Synopsis

It is the 1950’s, and the protagonist, identified only as ‘I,’ has come from Tokyo to study, burdened by the high expectations of his poor family in northeastern Japan. He meets a young woman named Shino who works in a small restaurant in the Komagome area of Tokyo. They fall in love, and he takes her to his family home through the heavy snow for their wedding. He introduces Shino to his elderly parents and his sister; they spend their wedding night together listening to bells ringing on sleighs gliding past across the moonlit snow. The next morning, wrapped in their small world of happiness, they go to a hot spring in the mountains to begin their honeymoon.

For More Information

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