| STORY
In Hitosuji, a fictious village of the sort to
be found everywhere in rural Japan, everyday life goes on as it always
has, around a man who does nothing but sleep. There are mountains, forests,
rivers and fields: the seasons come and go, but life and death, humankind
and nature, are portrayed in unity rather than in their conventional opposition.
Underlying THE SLEEPING MAN are the traditional Japanese attitudes to nature,
to life and to death. The past century has brought the rapid modernisation
of the country, particulary in the years that followed World War II. It
would seem that the Japanese have, alongside the Western technology, adopted
Western values at the expense of traditional Japanese ones. Yet increasingly
it becomes clear that the price paid for economic progress has been high,
with the Japanese now finding themselves bereft of that inner life which
might endow their existence with a sense of meaning. In this film, Oguri
tries to extract the richness of the "life" that Japan has lost.
After a long time THE SLEEPING MAN is a masterpiece of the Japanese film.
It is rich of content, beautiful of image. This is a highly praiseworthy
film that cannot fail to leave a strong spiritual impression on the viewer.
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| Kohei OGURI - Director
Born on 29 October, 1945, Maebashi, Gumna prefecture,
Japan. Oguri graduated in drama from the University of Waseda. Then, he
became an assistant director, working with, among others, Masahiro SHINODA
and Kiriro URAYAMA. In 1981 he directed his first feature MUDDY RIVER,
a story set in the 50s, about the friendship between a middle-class boy
and the children who live on a houseboat moored next to his parent's restaurant.
Winning many awards including the KINEMAJUNPO MAGAZINE's Best Japanese
Film of the Year Award and Second Prize at the Moscow International Film
Festival. In 1984 he directed his second film FOR KAYAI ( from the novel
by Hue-Song LEE ) and received the Georges SADOUL Award. In 1990, STING
OF DEATH ( from the novel by Toshio SHIMAO ), about the near break-up of
a marriage, which, with its stylised imagery, marked a major step in the
development of a personal directorial style, received, both, the GRAND
PRIX 1990 and the INTERNAITONAL CRITICS PRIZE ( FIPRESCI ) at the Cannes
Film Festival. With this film Mr. Oguri won worldwide acclaim. THE SLEEPING
MAN is his fourth feature film.
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