PEACE
(平和)
2010. 70 mins.
In Japanese with English subtitles.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10 – 7:30 PM with Kazuhiro Soda and producer Kiyoko Kashiwagi in-person for Q&A.
(This event is $10.)

This is a part of the complete retrospective RADICAL OBSERVATION: THE FILMS OF KAZUHIRO SODA. Full series information here: spectacletheater.com/kazuhiro-soda

Considered an “extra” among Soda’s official body of what he calls “observational films”, PEACE is a radiant portrait of Toshio and Hiroko Kashiwagi, an elderly couple running a “Welfare Transportation Service” in the town of Okayama – a town which is (not entirely coincidentally) the site of Soda’s previous deep dive into alternative caretaking, the 2008 documentary MENTAL. The pair are also the parents of Soda’s producer and wife Kiyoko, so part of the thrill of PEACE comes from watching Soda shape his ten commandments of documentary filmmaking in following people from otherwise life. Working with reduced assistance from the Japanese government, Toshio and Hiroko pair tend to their charges, who include a traumatized WW2 veteran living alone in a flea-ridden shoebox and a worker who describes himself as unmarriable due to a physical deformity. It’s obvious their decades of care have not yielded in a lavish lifestyle or worldwide fame, yet Toshio and Hiroko carry on. PEACE is beloved (and possibly infamous) for a subplot detailing Toshio’s attention to the stray cats gathering near his house, episodes which offer an oasis refuge of tranquility amid the grind of day-to-day life (and, in his wife’s words, a “nuisance for the neighbors”.)

“In its depiction of calm cooperation under adverse conditions, PEACE proves newly relevant in the wake of the Honshu earthquake and subsequent tsunami, suggesting increased arthouse viability….Docu proceeds in a continuous flow that appears effortless, segueing from person to person and cat to cat with perfect equanimity, Soda handling all aspects of the filming himself.” – Ronnie Scheib, Variety