Village of Dreams 1996

Village of Dreams 1996
Eno nakano bokuno mura (original title)
1h 52m | Drama, Family, Fantasy | 13 July 1996 (Japan)

Storyline:

Tells of the childhood of nine-year-old twins in a rural village in Japan after World War 2. Includes the boys’ relationships with their schoolteacher mother, civil servant father, elderly landlord, a rough new boy at the school, and three mysterious spirits in the form of old women.

User review:

This is a film about two (very naughty but cute!) twins growing up in the post-World War II Japan countryside. The brothers grow up to become artists, one in Kyoto and the other in Tokyo, and the film is their reflection back on their early school days growing up, around ages 8-10 and living in a sylvan country village. I didn’t find the film (which I just saw on video) to be captivating, but it was perhaps worth watching to enjoy a bit of local color and get a sense of what late 1940s rural Japan might have been like.

Director: Yôichi Higashi
Writers: Yôichi Higashi, Takehiro Nakajima, Seizo Tashima (story)
Stars: Mieko Harada, Keigo Matsuyama, Shogo Matsuyama
Country of origin: Japan
Language: Japanese