One of the rarer selections in the Nikkatsu series, Tomu Uchida’s legendary portrait of a peasant family was shot over the course of several seasons in northern Japan. The leader of his household, Kanji, strives to provide for his wife and children, but finds himself hobbled by inherited debt. Playing out against stark landscapes and authentically rustic interiors, the rural docudrama is galvanized by innovations from Soviet and German cinema, and was supposedly made in secret after Nikkatsu rejected an initial story proposal.
