The Number 2 Lake Biwa School has cared for severely physically handicapped children for over 40 years. The renovation of the old and crumbling facilities provided the inspiration for making this film, which mixes 16mm synch sound sequences of the lives of the people in the home and their families with 8mm footage from the time when the school was founded and the earlier years of some of the inhabitants. Each of the residents has a different story to tell. One of the long-term residents decides to leave the facility and move to a more independent halfway house set up by the residents, causing his parents to worry. Another resident is wholly dependent on an artificial respirator and can only communicate by moving his eyes. As the seasons change, so the small dramas in the school unfold.
Directed by Shigeru Kobayashi
Your score–
Not scoredImages
Related
Hayao Miyazaki and the Heron
Ex Libris: The New York Public Library
The U.S. vs. John Lennon
The Class of ‘92
Naqoyqatsi
Anna Nicole Smith: You Don't Know Me
Night Will Fall
Come See Me in the Good Light
American Boy: A Profile of Steven Prince
Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction
Halloween: 25 Years of Terror
Trainwreck: The Real Project X
As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty
Fuck
To Kill a Tiger
McQueen