Under Snow

It is deep winter in the Japanese province of Echigo. The snowy landscape might look like the backdrop to a fairytale, but life in the white cold is arduous for the inhabitants of the region. Ulrike Ottinger observes contemporary life there and simultaneously sends off two actors on a journey to explore the region’s past. UNDER SNOW is a realistic documentary about a rural area and also an investigation of its myths.

Takeo and Mako want to spend New Year’s in the snowy region. After having travelled there in Japan’s ultra-modern high-speed Shinkansen train, they find themselves in a lonely, snow-covered winter forest while on their way to their hostel. They had planned to take part in the celebratory rituals. But they lose their sense of orientation, first in terms of space and then it terms of time, and the journey leads them from the present to the past. At first, Ulrike Ottinger shows images of what the two travellers had imagined they’d experience on their journey: a bath in a hot spring, prayers and meditation in the temple, the preparation of the festive dishes in a modern kitchen, an opulent feast. But instead of the two wanderers, one sees women experiencing what the travellers had imagined, while the two disoriented men find shelter in a lonely house at night. An elderly woman serves them sake and explains they can stay but are on no account allowed to enter a certain room. Using this ancient fairytale motif, the film single-mindedly leads viewers into the lost world of the Edo period, into its myths and secrets; covertly, the director continues the lost wanderers’ journey and, with the camera, observes what still resonates in the present through rituals passed on from the past.

A female fox, we are told, showed the two travellers the way to the lonely house; she fell in love with Takeo and will turn into a beautiful woman from the Edo period, and then restlessly journey into the snow-covered winter forest with the two wanderers, who have now also been transported back to the past and are shown as Kabuki actors. There, they will encounter people long ago deceased and the circumstances under which they lived. What becomes apparent here is the close connection between religion, ancient rituals and the demands once placed on the people of the snowy region in their tough day-to-day lives. This extends from sacrificial offerings to gods of roads and mountains to songs and customs which the people today use to recall the difficulties their forefathers had to contend with – for example, the struggle against rice-eating birds.

Ulrike Ottinger observes an abbot’s children while playing, outdoors, at home and also in the temple. She observes women rolling out the metre-long, pastel-coloured woven sheets of “crêpe de Chine” in the snow. What looks like land art is actually part of their daily chores: the high-quality silk must be bleached in the snow, as it would tear in higher temperatures. The film repeatedly moves from the present to the mythical past: it tells the story of a lady weaver who was driven to insanity by an evil mountain ghost – and in this dramatised flashback, the lost Kabuki duo appear a number of times. During their winter odyssey as contemporary witnesses, they come face to face with the origins of myths that have been conserved in today’s customs and rituals. And so the film swings persistently between dreams and reality, present and tradition, realism and magic, until the worn-out Kabuki duo drop dead in the snow and three blind travelling musicians not only find their bodies, but also a newborn baby who would become a gifted actor with enormous capabilities, as he has “a human father and an animal mother“. The film continues on the mythical level one last time, and tells a story of life and death, loyalty and betrayal - by using a theatrical performance, among other things. The talented actor was banned to the island of Sado by the emperor, where he was forced to work in a gold mine, never again saw the light of day and became a poet. Back in the present, Ottinger visits the island; several mechanically controlled figures at the mine serve to remind visitors of the tortures the miners once had to endure.

“My interest was sparked by a Japanese book that caused a sensation in the 20th century. It described the circumstances people in the snowy region had to live under, circumstances that have barely changed today. The part of Japan’s coastal mountain range that faces Siberia is an area where it snows very often, and everything lies under a metre-high cover of snow for six months. The inhabitants of this region were forced to come up with entirely new ways of life and survival strategies. They managed so in quite an astounding way, even without having to do away with their feasts, rituals and other pleasantries. All activities took place on top of and sometimes under the snow, and even a Kabuki theatre is built out of snow, with a flower-strewn walkway for the star. Almost all my interests culminate in this material; Eastern theatre styles such as Kabuki, Noh and Bunraku, music, breathtaking landscapes, creative people who manage to master their day-to-day lives under tough circumstances and come together to work socially and creatively.“ (Ulrike Ottinger) “Ulrike Ottinger’s films are made of the material and the mythical. She shows these two worlds entangled, how social rituals are born from natural processes and in turn have an effect on nature.” (Süddeutsche Zeitung)

The films ends with extreme long shots; the camera looks out onto the churning sea, the cliffs, waves and froth, at “the raging sea – only the Milky Way can traverse it!“ An image of timeless infinity.