故郷 (1972)

The film tells a simple, bitter story of how the happiness of a little man—a hereditary seafarer named Seiichi—is crushed beneath the “iron heel” of modern civilization. Seiichi Ishizaki lives on a picturesque island in the Seto Inland Sea. He is the captain of an old wooden boat that carries stone. His only crew member is his own wife, who serves aboard as both engineer and cook… Seiichi takes on a cargo of building stone, which he must deliver to the site of a new port under construction. The construction site is several dozen kilometers away. The work is hard and carries the constant danger of capsizing, but husband and wife do it bravely and even feel affection for it—after all, it feeds them and lets them live in their native place… However, Seiichi cannot compete with the large modern vessels owned by wealthy proprietors, and is forced to go ashore and take a day laborer’s job at a shipyard. From a small private entrepreneur, he becomes a modern industrial worker. Not only must Seiichi abandon the place where he has put down roots and the work he loved, but the shipyard wages are unlikely to provide even the bare minimum for him and his family, and there is little hope of brighter prospects…