The Song of Rain

Somewhere in Japan, two men live in a new age house, through the windows of which the reflections and ripples of the rain shimmer in black and white. One of them explains to a journalist that the house’s design allows them to gather rainwater and use it for the plants that they grow in order to meet their needs. The other brings them tea. One is granted speech and social consideration, the other labour. But when they leave the house to walk through the fields or go fishing for eels, or when they try to kill a tortoise for a meal, the positions are reversed. An unexpected cruelty suddenly spices up this slapstick variation on diverging relations to nature in contemporary Japan. (Nathan Letoré)