Sanrizuka - Heta Village

Director: Shinsuke Ogawa

1973 / 146min / 16mm

In the summer of 1968, as the construction of the Narita International Airport outside of Tokyo was loudly protested by local farmers and student activists, Ogawa Productions arrived on the scene and joined the struggle. The product of their committed plunge into the melee was a cycle of seven films, the Sanrizuka Series; in this, the sixth of those films, Ogawa pushed this to the far background to concentrate on the village of Heta itself—its history, its customs, and its people—as one of its youth commits suicide and others are detained by police. A quiet, patient film, its 11 scenes are mostly rendered in single takes in an attempt to render the “time of the village.” An extraordinary documentary about time and place, this was the first of two masterpieces by Ogawa Productions.