Institute History
Description
The story takes place in Okinawa around 1970, shortly before its return to Japanese sovereignty. Goya Reishu, once a successful musician, is unemployed after losing his job on a U.S. base. He lives with his family and spends his time catching snakes and sticking numbers on ants. Ito, a visiting Japanese botanist, gives lectures on Japanese poetry to the local people. He falls in love with Nabee, a girl of mixed bloocl, and asks to marry her. Her mother, Morshi, is delighted, but then she discovers that Nabee is pregnant—by Reishu—because Nabee is eating black ants, a common compulsion among pregnant women. To protect the marriage plan, Nabee's burly brothers, Mitch and Matthew, decide to find some way to deal with Reichu.
Comment: watching Paradise View is like watching a foreign film on Japan. Quite unusual for a Japanese film. Almost every line in it is spoken in Okinawan, and so the Japanese members of the cast had to learn it. To distribute this film in Japan with Japanese subtitles was an interesting experiment. It will make it easier in the future to dispel the illusion that Japan is a homogeneous society.