The Story of Yanagawa's Canals (1987)
The Story of Yanagawa's Canals (1987)
DVDRip | MKV | 704 x 480 | x264 @ 1215 Kbps | 166 min | 1,96 Gb
Dual Audio: English and Japanese - each AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps
Subs: English and Japanese (embedded), Arabic (srt)
Genre: Documentary
DVDRip | MKV | 704 x 480 | x264 @ 1215 Kbps | 166 min | 1,96 Gb
Dual Audio: English and Japanese - each AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps
Subs: English and Japanese (embedded), Arabic (srt)
Genre: Documentary
An (almost) live action documentary movie, this independent movie was produced by Nibariki (Miyazaki's personal office), with the royalty revenue from Nausicaä. At first, it was supposed to be an animated film which took place in the town of Yanagawa. After the success of Nausicaä, Tokuma wanted to produce another animated movie (of course, they wanted a Nausicaä sequel), and Miyazaki was looking for a good project. Miyazaki visited Yanagawa, and was impressed by the beautiful town with its canals, and came up with an idea for a film about high school boys and girls in Yanagawa, and thought that Takahata, who worked as a producer for Nausicaä, should direct such a film…
… Yanagawa is a city in far western Japan with an incredibly complex system of canals and waterways hundreds of years old. As it is in many places in the developed world, Yanagawa had succumbed to the allure of modernization. As a result, its system of waterways gradually fell into disuse and neglect. The canals stagnated and became overgrown with plant life. Eventually the neglect became abuse as a convenient dump for those unneeded trappings of modernization, such as electrical appliances. The people of the city got fed up with the assault on the senses and set out to cover them over.
The mayor assigned an engineer to study the task at hand. Instead of coming up with a plan to cover the waterways over, however, the engineer had a different idea: he proposed the waterways be revived to their full historic splendor. It was a hard sell, but he eventually managed to get the town enthusiastic. Now, the entire town devotes considerable time and effort keeping the canals clean and viable. There's even an annual festival where the canals are drained and cleaned out. The payback, though, has been phenomenal. The city is now a tourist spot, drawing visitors from around the country when the canals are open and volunteers when they're being cleaned. The people now have beautiful canals and a sense of unity and civic pride.
This documentary was thoroughly fascinating. It described the mechanics of feudal Japanese waterway construction in simple terms. It documented the extraordinary efforts the engineer took to sell his idea to the town. Most importantly, it provided a convincing argument that not all things modern are necessarily improvements over the old ways. Even if the work is harder, the rewards can be far greater. I give it a ten.
(click to enlarge)
The Story of Yanagawa's Canals (1987)
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