Kobayashi Issa
(“Shinano fudoki yori: Kobayashi Issa”)
1941 / B&W / 35mm / 27 min
Director: Kamei Fumio
Photography: Shirai Shigeru
Sound: Sakai Eizo
Music: Oki Masao
Narrator: Tokugawa Musei
Production Company: Culture Films Department, Toho
Source: National Film Center
This film is the second of a planned trilogy called The Natural Features of Shinano (“Shinano fudoki”), commissioned by the Nagano Prefectural Department of Tourism. The first in the series, Song of Ina (1940) has been lost. The third film, Town and Countryside (“Machi to noson”) was never completed. The film uses the haiku of early 19th century poet Kobayashi Issa as its motif to portray the lives of farmers residing deep in the mountains (Nagano Prefecture is 80% mountainous) surrounded by poverty and nature through the poetic images of cameraman Shirai Shigeru (Record of the Great Kanto Earthquake, 1923 and Crossing the Waves, 1937). The film is highly acclaimed as Japan’s first “poetic documentary” and many regard it as Kamei’s best work. After releasing this film, Kamei was unceremoniously arrested and sent off to jail on charges of plotting the promotion of Communist anti-war sentiment after the making of Shanghai. He is the only filmmaker to have spent time in jail during the War.