海は見ていた Umi wa miteita [La Mer Regarde/The Sea is Watching] 2002
DVDrip | XviD-1320 | mp3@192 | 688x368 | 2 Audio tracks: Japanese_1 French_2 | Subs: French, English, German, Turkish, Arabic, Hindi idx/sub | DVD Cover | 1h54 | 1.4 Gb
Drama Romance | Japan 2002 | Director Kei Kumai
The Sea is Watching opens with a gentle tracking shot, gliding down from the sky into the hectic streets of a red-light district in 19th-century Okabasho, Japan. It's a sweeping introduction that's common to films, a gesture that discloses time and place, and also, by its very virtuosity, the fact that this magical portal into another world is an allusive construct. This duality of purpose is entirely fitting for a film that is at once a straightforward narrative, an "Akira Kurosawa story," and a story about stories, how they affect people who tell and hear them. It initiates not only an empathic relationship between the viewer and characters, but also a relationship with storytelling itself.