Synopsis
For some reason, there is very little snow in the winter of 2020 on the Shiretoko Peninsula, a special place located in the northernmost part of Japan where rare wild animals coexist with humans. The typical drift ice hasn’t appeared yet, either. Although worried, the inhabitants of the village Shari continue their daily affairs. In these rural surroundings, director Nao Yoshigai, introduces a mysterious, fiery-red creature, like a walking scarecrow.
A word from Tënk
Poetry sometimes takes us by surprise, taking on an unusual guise. At first, we vaguely recognize its contours, but then it becomes clearer and more obvious. There's no doubt about it: it's poetry - mysterious and disquieting - that has taken the form of a strange red woolly beast in this film shot in a small Japanese village on the shores of the Sea of Okhotsk.
Set against a backdrop of climate change, the film is halfway between an ecological fable, ethnographic tale, ASMR video and the daydream of a mischievous and whimsical (!) dreamer.
From house to house, director and dancer Nao Yoshigai deploys a luminous presence that seems to attract irregular beauty and magical creatures. From a baker-shepherdess to an unemployed dairy farmer turned woodcarving collector, each interior visited is like the unfolding of a cabinet of curiosities with a delicate, improbable charm. Much like this delightfully strange film, which invites poetry to transfigure documentary cinema in an astonishing treatment that commands admiration.
Naomie Décarie-Daigneault
Tënk's Artistic Director
