Sanka: Nomads of the Mountains 
山歌（サンカ） 「Sanka」
Release Date: April 22nd, 2022
Duration: 77 mins.
Director: Ryohei Sasatani
Writer: Ryohei Sasatani (Screenplay),
Starring: Rairu Sugita, Naru Komukai, Kiyohiko Shibukawa, Kisuke Iida, Shungiku Uchida, Yoko Ran,
Films featuring the clash between modernisation, tradition, and the natural world are plentiful in cinema, perhaps most memorably in the magical movies of Miyazaki and Takahata of Studio Ghibli fame with Princess Mononoke (1997) and Pom Poko (1994). Documentarian Ryohei Sasatani makes his narrative feature debut with crowdfunded indie Sanka: Nomads of the Mountains and channels these themes onto the screen via the self-actualisation of the film’s young protagonist.
The film opens in the summer of 1965 with main protagonist Norio (Rairu Sugita) returning from Tokyo to his father’s family estate nestled at the foot of ancient mountains. Greeting him is a grandmother and a traditional house that would be defined by silence if not for the voices of birds and insects in the surrounding area.
Alongside a few items of physical baggage like textbooks he is using to prepare for his high school entrance exam, Norio brings emotional baggage in his alienation which is shown via his distant attitude to others, the bruises on his face from fights with schoolmates, and his inability to focus on his studies. An unspoken connection with a mother whose fate was connected to the mountains, as represented by memories glimpsed in flashbacks and a necklace she left behind, also underlies his teenage angst which brews away in the confines of the house, a place where the atmosphere becomes stifling in the presence of his overbearing father (Kisuke Iida), a war veteran and amateur industrialist bent on revitalising the town by developing his land.
Norio’s rebellious phase is given direction when he meets three Sanka, mountain folk whose lives have been spent wandering to where it’s cool in summer and warm in winter. First sprightly teenager Hana (Naru Komukai) whose theft of a pail of potatoes leads him to her father Shozo (Kiyohiko Shibukawa), a bear of a man whose paternal instincts run softer than those of Norio’s own father, and then grandmother Tae (Yoko Ran), a firecracker of a character whose teasing of the listless lad with scary stories makes him further intrigued with these wanderers whose traditions stretch back to the Edo period.
Looking and behaving like characters Shohei Imamura’s The Ballad of Narayama, the three Sanka offer a stark contrast in look and lifestyle to the staid village folk Norio is used to. Time spent with the Sanka leads him to learn how to forage and hunt, craft tools, appreciate their ancient free-roaming existence, and reckon with a fading tradition in a Japan starting its economic boom period. However, their presence on the family estate, an age old custom, puts them at odds with Norio’s father who wishes to exploit the mountains and is willing to drive the interlopers off.
With all of the players in place, a relatively straightforward story is executed that includes many themes to keep a viewer thinking. Conflict builds as Norio is drawn towards what appears to be a more honest and simple existence and he tears himself away from the strictures of family duties. Thus, both Norio and the mountain become centre of a battle between nature and the drive for modernisation.
In Sasatani’s smooth script, Norio’s experiences are infused with ideas of pacifism, ecological and social responsibility and history. These issues proves to be emotionally resonant due to their universal nature and it helps that there are uniformly good performances from the cast. Rairu Sugita believably embodies a boy who is searching for himself while also being the nexus for the film’s themes. As a solid centre, Kisuke Iida and Kiyohiko Shibukawa bounce off him well as different, persuasive versions of masculine ideals that link into the way they treat the land as well as others. Then there is Naru Komukai who portrays a girl full of liveliness and defiance that viewers can believe would spark change in a teen boy.
While Sasatani’s script offers a sense of poignancy and dignity to the Sanka by allowing the characters the dialogue to talk about their traditions and experiences to fully flesh out who they are, he doesn’t skip the hardship that comes with living off the land and being discriminated against due to living outside of society. Additionally, enough nuance is given to Norio’s father and his commitments to others to prevent him being a two-dimensional character, more a man who understands that economic changes will be forced upon everyone as an inevitability of the post-war time period with the foresight to tap into the brewing economic boom.
Crucial to everything is the scenery of Gunma Prefecture. Reflecting the low-budget of the film, there are a few interior scenes with period appropriate props but the majority of the film is in the lush mountain setting where the film is shot in rain and shine and natural light of various times of the day. Sasatani has chosen the best place to tell a story of a person finding themselves in nature with challenging terrain, beautiful areas for poetic visuals and even creatures for the characters handle. These are unspoiled places, the sort of which might drive a person to find a different aspect of their character and lament the changes forced upon the world by humanity which is what the film wishes to evoke and succeeds in doing in a simple yet profound and visually pleasurable way.