Director: Cláudia Varejão 2016 Portugal/Switzerland Japanese with English subtitles 113 minutes
This film was a fascinating look at how an ancient work/fishing profession among Japanese women is integrated with their 21st century lives: these are working women in a modern Japanese community. The details that we see about their daily lives include cell phones and TV, a quiet shack where they sleep beside a fire after diving, singing karaoke and enjoying elaborate feasts of Japanese coastal food. The sea seems to support abundant shellfish harvesting without drawing conflict or competitive emotions from the many fisher-women. Female harmony, self-empowerment and a deepened sense of inter-generational community seem to be the fruits of this ancient fishing tradition.
Cláudia Varejão’s intimate documentary focuses on women living in a small town off of Japan’s Shima Peninsula who have carried on the 2,000-year-old tradition of diving for pearls, sea urchins, and abalone. Challenging notions of how Japanese females are supposed to behave, the Ama (“sea women”) dive without scuba gear or oxygen tanks, wearing minimal protection. Like the Ama probing the ocean’s depths, Varejão’s camera examines the minutiae of the women’s day-to-day existence: their hair curlers, the sea salt clinging to their skin, and assorted daily feminine tasks that are all too often taken for granted. Winner of best Portuguese documentary at DocLisboa.
