"The Okinawan islands have long served as an 'exotic' location for Japanese movies (e.g. Oshima's Dear Summer Sister and Terayama's Farewell to the Ark), but Tsuyoshi Takamine is the first ethnically Okinawan director who comes to the cinema with a commitment to putting his own people and culture on the screen. The film is set in the early 1970s, just before Japan's resumption of sovereignty over the islands, and lurking in the background is a commentary on Okinawa's spiritual independence from Japan. In the foreground we have Reishu (Kaoru Kobayashi), who has quit his job with the US Army and kills time catching snakes and glueing numbers to ants; and Chiru (Jun Togawa), who is pleasing her parents by drifting into marriage with a Japanese teacher from the mainland. The trouble begins when Reishu gets Chiru pregnant... Takamine brings together a languorous tale of indolence, lust and frustration with a truly bizarre invented mythology that involves mutated animals known as 'rainbow pigs,' sea-hashish, and men who 'lose their souls' and become 'hidden by God.' (A glossary of terms will be provided at the screening.) The two strands are cemented by Haruomi (Harry) Hosono's extraordinary, haunting score. "After more than a decade of independent, avant-garde filmmaking, Tsuyoshi Takamine has achieved a kind of breakthrough with Paradise View, the first of his films to reach a large audience in Japan and the first to be seen abroad. Its success is partly attributable to the casting (Kobayashi and Togawa are well-known singers, who both learned Okinawan for their roles), and the involvement of 'Harry' Hosono (one-third of the Yellow Magic Orchestra), but it's mostly due to the film's own humor, eroticism and off-the-wall surrealism. Takamine is a talent to compare with the young Werner Herzog." Tony Rayns Featured at the Tokyo, Edinburgh, Berlin, Hong Kong and Sydney Film Festivals.