The luminous and streaky light rippling in the waters of the Inland Sea has the subtle power of a desert mirage. Pellucid like those of an atoll or a sea-green lagoon, these waters fill up an internal space connecting the Pacific Ocean with the Sea of Japan, also making possible the shipping industry integral to an island nation that until the nineteenth century was closed to the world. It hid its secrets from its neighbors greedily, cleaving only to itself, and when at last it permitted the opening of its ports to the American ships helmed by Commodore Matthew C. Perry, it burst onto the modern stage and unfurled its glory like a late-blooming wildflower.
Something of this romantic mythology of an unknown, foreign land runs through the documentary The Inland Sea, directed by Lucille Carra and based on the superb travelogue by Donald Richie. It has steady and dreamlike external rhythms that lull the eyes into all this flowing water—its visual pleasures hardly need be mentioned. And the narration by Richie is likewise even-keeled and coaxing.
Its content becoming one with its visuals, The Inland Sea recounts the musings of its writer as he traverses these waters on boats and by foot, stopping among rivulets and woods and paying homage to the grandeur and the silent history of many of its age-old shrines. To Richie these are often premodern symbols of a religious view of the world without pretensions, merely asking visitors and adherents to put across their thoughts and reverence in their own terms.
Modernity itself plays a big role for Richie: in Japan especially, the modernity of its cities and buildings hides the real Japan from the casual visitor, covering up the simple essence of what was historically a people of the sea. It is in the remote and nearly deserted villages of the seaside and the Inland Sea that the most authentic Japan continues plying its trade and living out its origins–this at least is the truth as suggested by Donald Richie.
On time and the nature of the spontaneous in art and beauty, and his own experiences and longings as a traveler in this fascinating country—Richie was a lifelong Japanophile of the highest order—his long commentary floats from frame to frame, giving their due also to the people of these places—such as Hiroshima and Matsuyama—and lingering on detached and nameless sights and sounds, like those of children playing and chatting on a field during a game of soccer.
This is no vacation to Japan—it is instead like the sightless flashes of insight that come just before sleep. It is, all in all, a traveler’s reverie.