Real and slow: The poetics and politics of The Naked Island

A seminal film that presaged the 1960s boom of independent cinema in Japan, Shindō Kaneto’s The Naked Island (1960) also marked its director’s breakthrough to the international market. This article examines how the film’s depiction of primitive agrarian life, particularly the ‘authentic’ labouring bodies, relates to the notions of neorealism and ‘slow cinema’. Tracing its international influences, a comparison to Flaherty’s Man of Aran (1934) reveals how ‘poetical licence’ is an integral part of documentary film with ethnographical aspirations. Working outside the restrictive nature of the Japanese studio system, The Naked Island consolidated the director’s stripped-down and self-sufficient methods of independent filmmaking. After winning the Grand Prize at the Moscow International Film Festival, it also brought him a considerable following amidst the geopolitical tensions of the Cold War.