sake in films

[Mark Nornes]

Ah, sake....definitely one of the best things about Japan, both in 
taste and style of imbibing. There are too many examples to list, but 
here is my favorite sake story, in a quote from the book I'm working 
on. The film under production is Nihon kaiho sensen: Sanrizuka (1970).

Markus

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While Tsuchimoto and Kansai Ogawa Productions filmed Prehistory of the 
Partisans in Kyoto, Ogawa and the main unit continued their “Taiga 
Drama” behind the barricades in the fields of Sanrizuka. Up until this 
point, Ogawa and his crew were living in an apartment in the larger 
town of Sanrizuka. This building, near Sanrizuka Crossroads, was 
outside of the construction site itself and they hoped to move into one 
of the nearby buraku (hamlets) as soon as possible. The staff spread 
out to the entire area, looking for possible places as they researched 
the development of the struggle. They soon settled on two strong 
possibilities, Komaino and Heta. Both were adjacent to the airport 
boundary, but the resemblances ended there. In Heta, virtually everyone 
refused to sell; in Komaino all but one farmer had joined the so-called 
“joken-ha” (which might be translated, “the side that sold out for 
concessions”).

They chose to live in Heta, where the Uriu family offered to lend them 
a small outbuilding to live in and work out of. Heta sat in a small, 
narrow, remarkably beautiful valley, and was home to 33 families. Two 
of these were empty homes (one left the village, and the other was 
Kichiyoin Temple). Of the remaining families, 28 were in the Hantai 
Domei and refused to sell. This was a particularly politicized village. 
Above and beyond this impressive statistic, the women were tough and 
spirited. Neighbor Ishii Setsuko, one of the most familiar faces of the 
Sanrizuka Series proudly told me, “Ogawa always said he came here 
because we Heta women were always the first to arrive at the very front 
lines.”

In stark contrast, virtually all of neighboring Komaino was being sold 
to the Kodan without a fight. The lone exception was Seimiya Tsutomu, a 
grizzled old farmer who refused to move. Ogawa Productions was 
intrigued by this man. They would make Seijiya the centerpiece of their 
next film. Much to their dismay, however, Seimiya himself would have 
nothing of this and refused to cooperate. Honma took up the cracking of 
Seimiya’s resistance as his personal project. At the end of every day, 
he would bike the 20 minutes over to Seimiya’s home and talk and drink 
for hours. Aside from learning about the village and Seimiya’s life, 
Honma tried to make the filmmakers’ position clear to the old man. The 
problem was that Seimiya could not distinguish between fiction and 
documentary. He figured the film was about him; that made him an actor 
and this was a task he had no interest in. Honma tried in vain to teach 
him the difference between fiction and documentary, but the man was 
stubborn. Honma’s nightly visits continued for an entire year, 
testament to how far Ogawa Pro was willing to go for their films. Ogawa 
Pro members often joke that Honma’s own evidence became his battered 
face. After one long night of drinking and discussion he returned home 
to Heta knock-down drunk and lost control of his bicycle, smashing his 
mouth into the handlebars and losing his front teeth. After that, he 
called this toothless smile his memorial to Sanrizuka.

Ogawa finally became impatient with the lack of progress, ordering 
Tamura and Honma to shoot Seimiya one way or another. By this point in 
their relationship, both sides completely understood the others’ 
position. It was time to shoot or forget it. The film had already 
expanded far beyond a singular portrait of Seimiya, but art least they 
could include an interview. Since Seimiya refused, they shot him 
cutting rice by hand. He attacked them with a sickle; when they shot 
him out with a rifle, he pointed it at them. Both scenes are in the 
finished film, along with a moving interview that he finally granted. I 
will discuss this conversation below. Seimiya was also featured in 
Ogawa Pro’s most powerful posters (a triptych with images of a helmeted 
youth and a wasted construction site). His ruddy face looks to the 
heavens with a quote from his interview: “When a farmer sells his land, 
that’s the end.”

This extraordinary effort for a single interview evidences the lengths 
to which Ogawa Pro was willing to go to build their filmmaking on 
honest relationships with their objects. Nothing could be further from 
the hit and run exploitation of television news, or the majority of 
documentarists for that matter.

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