Umi ni sakebu onna review: A very windy, sad day at the beach

If you are looking for something fast or exciting, just stop right now. This movie is for people who like to sit in a dark room and watch the wind blow hair across a woman's face for ten minutes.

I think it is worth watching if you care about how Japanese movies started out. But if you hate silent films where people just stare at the horizon, you will probably loathe this.

The story is pretty thin. Sakuko Yanagi plays the lead, and her face basically does all the heavy lifting because the intertitles are kind of sparse.

There is this one shot where she is standing by the rocks. The waves are actually hitting the camera lens, or at least it looks like it, and it feels way more real than anything made in a studio back then.

It was written by Hiroshi Shimizu and Kogo Noda. You can tell they were still figuring things out, but the sadness is already there.

The print I saw was a bit scratchy. Sometimes a character's face would just disappear into a blob of white light for a second.

It actually makes the whole thing feel more ghostly. Like you are watching a memory that is rotting away while you look at it.

Ichiro Yuki is in this too. He has this very stiff way of moving that feels a bit old-fashioned, even for 1928.

I found myself wondering if his suit was actually itchy. He keeps adjusting his shoulders in a way that doesn't feel like 'acting' so much as 'my clothes don't fit.'

The movie is much more grounded than something like Don Juan. It doesn't have that big, theatrical energy.

Instead, it feels like someone just took a camera to a fishing village and waited for something sad to happen. 🌊

There is a scene with a letter that goes on for a long time. Like, a really long time.

I stopped reading the subtitles and just looked at the texture of the paper. It looked like the kind of paper that would feel damp if you touched it.

The pacing is definitely uneven. Some parts feel like they forgot to edit them, and then suddenly three months pass in the story during a single fade-out.

It is not a 'masterpiece' or anything. It is just a moody little film about being stuck in a place you don't want to be.

I liked it more than The Little Brother, mostly because the ocean feels like a real character here. It is loud even though the movie is silent.

If you have an hour and want to feel slightly depressed in a beautiful way, give it a go. Just don't expect a happy ending or a clear explanation for why everyone is so miserable. 🐚