"To the Ends of the Earth": Japanese in Uzbekistan

Japan is a country in whose food rice plays a crucial role.

So it's safe to assume that a Japanese reporter who is served a plate of plov at a large market in Uzbekistan can tell if she's dealing with a delicacy.

But Yoko can't swallow a bite.

It's like the rice wasn't cooked at all.

The raw grains bother her, there is a small scandal, because hospitality can quickly become repressive.

Luckily, she has Temur with her, a young local who accompanies Yoko and her camera crew wherever they go.

She's a star in her home country, her TV show is widely watched, and now she's in Uzbekistan, filming a program that could be called something like Kiyoshi Kurosawa's film,

in which Yoko is the main character: "To the Ends of the Earth".

The geography is ironic, and it so happens that Uzbekistan, a large country in Central Asia, lies at the end of the world from a Japanese (and arguably Western European) perspective.

For the audience in Germany, this film (from today in selected cinemas, otherwise on the streaming portal Filmingo) offers a double exoticism: Japanese pop culture meets a little-known country in which the traces of the Soviet Union can still be seen, as well as an inkling of the Orient, which probably means that Yoko always asks about the bazaar first.

from a Japanese (and probably also from a Western European) perspective lies at the end of the world.

For the audience in Germany, this film (from today in selected cinemas, otherwise on the streaming portal Filmingo) offers a double exoticism: Japanese pop culture meets a little-known country in which the traces of the Soviet Union can still be seen, as well as an inkling of the Orient, which probably means that Yoko always asks about the bazaar first.

from a Japanese (and probably also from a Western European) perspective lies at the end of the world.

For the audience in Germany, this film (from today in selected cinemas, otherwise on the streaming portal Filmingo) offers a double exoticism: Japanese pop culture meets a little-known country in which the traces of the Soviet Union can still be seen, as well as an inkling of the Orient, which probably means that Yoko always asks about the bazaar first.

Pop culture, on the other hand, makes it necessary for her to sit down in a shaker at a small amusement park, which one would actually absolutely recommend not to do.

The owner also repeatedly objects that minors are not allowed - he thinks the reporter is a little girl, which is also probably an expression of cultural misunderstanding.

Yoko now insists on a ride all the more.

The device obviously comes from a time of harder mechanics, for the show it promises attractive images of a hype that is rarely found in this way.

The Japanese TV team is already under a bit of pressure at this point, because they haven't found too many attractive shots yet - for example, Yoko by no means caught the legendary Bramul fish from the impressive Aydarsee, only empty nets.

The unconditional enthusiasm with which she presents every little thing doesn't help either.

But Kiyoshi Kurosawa also shows another Yoko, a dreamy woman who embarks on somewhat daring small expeditions, traveling alone in a minibus with the local population.

Her goals may be conventional, but she finds herself on nocturnal passages, experiences fleeting adventures and finds her way back to the best hotel in town (along with a small collection of former socialist magnificent buildings).

You can see in these scenes that the Japanese filmmaker, one of the most productive in his country, uses the character Yoko as an opportunity to get to know a country that has largely been a blank spot in cinema since the Soviet Union.

There is now also an Uzbek Film Commission, productions and co-productions are supported.

"To the Ends of the World" owes its existence to international film diplomacy, although it remains to be seen whether Kiyoshi Kurosawa was curious about a distant country or whether there was a subsidy incentive to try something with Uzbek money.

As a result, it makes no difference.

In fact, the casual way in which the story of Yoko and her liaison Temur develops is precisely one of the film's qualities.

Conventionally, romance would be suggested here, but in this case Kurosawa chooses a different, more dramatic narrative option, conveyed through television footage from Japan.

Basically, Temur has one important appearance, a lengthy conversation in which he explains why he learned Japanese: he heard about a group of Japanese prisoners of war who ended up in Tashkent via Siberia after World War II, and who mainly involved in the construction and interior design of the Navoi Theater, the opera and ballet house in the Uzbek capital.

The Japanese team only half-listens to his explanations while Yoko remarks that she has already been to the theater.

She'd stumbled into it on one of her aimless explorations, in a scene that makes Kurosawa gleam in fairy-tale quality, or at least wish-fulfillment.

Yoko has a big performance as a musical star in the Navoi Theater, which probably only she knows something about.

The scene was deliberately filmed in an irritating manner.

The architectural sight remains alien, and Temur's narration does not make it any more familiar.

To the Ends of the Earth escalates as the TV crew from Japan runs out of familiar attractions, into a very beautiful reflection on being a stranger in an unfamiliar world.

And travel (as well as its mass media processing for the living room) is recognizable as a form of the utopian: with every goal reached, the horizon shifts, behind which another one could be waiting.

So Yoko finally sets off again, “to the mountains there in the distance”, because Uzbekistan not only has steppe to offer, but also high peaks or at least the view in the direction.

In western culture there is a cipher for such moments, Shangri-La, an exotic,

ideal place at the end of all transgressions.

In its own way, "To the Ends of the Earth" also achieves such a moment of the resolution of all contradictions, and it speaks very much for the film that it is at the same time a moment of the greatest irony and genuine self-discovery.