Muddy River (1981)

Muddy River (泥の河) is so good. I can't believe we are all sleeping on Oguri Kōhei, and I cannot believe this movie is not in print in English! It is excellent. This film was released in the U.S. in 1983 but is not on DVD at the moment.

 

 It's weird that I loved this as much as I did, too, because lately I have been very impatient with films from children's points of view, but this movie follows a young boy as he learns some serious life lessons. He is the child of a couple who runs a small restaurant, and he befriends a boy whose mother is a prostitute and has set up her riverboat near the restaurant so that she can take in customers. (That's her riverboat on the poster.) Muddy River is about poverty and labor and growing up, and, I think most importantly, treasuring what we have when we have it. It isn't so important that we hold on to what we have, just that we value it when we do... and that we don't let our prejudices get in the way of the love we have for one another.