The Inland Sea

The Inland Sea
The Inland Sea
	Blu-ray cover art for the Criterion Collection release
Directed by	Lucille Carra
Written by	Donald Richie
Based on	The Inland Sea; by Donald Richie
Produced by	Brian Cotnoir ; Lucille Carra
Narrated by	Donald Richie
Cinematography	Hiro Narita
Edited by	Brian Cotnoir
Music by	Toru Takemitsu
Production; company	Travelfilm Company
Release date	November 1991;
Running time	56 minutes
Countries	United States; Japan
Language	English

The Inland Sea is a 1991 American travel documentary directed by Lucille Carra. It is inspired by the 1971 travelogue of the same title written by Donald Richie. In the documentary, filmmaker Carra undertakes a similar trip across the islands of Japan's Inland Sea as Richie did twenty years prior. Donald Richie narrates the film.

The film won numerous awards, including Best Documentary at the Hawaii International Film Festival (1991) and the Earthwatch Film Award. It was screened at the Sundance Film Festival in 1992.^[1]

Production

American-born author Donald Richie primarily researched and wrote about the Japanese people and their culture. In 1971 he published The Inland Sea, a memoir of his travels across the isolated islands of the Seto Inland Sea to observe the way of life of the region's inhabitants. Twenty years later, documentary film director Lucille Carra intended to retrace his trip. The region was researched for a three-year period before filming began.

Reception

Critical reception

The film won the Best Documentary Award at the Hawaii International Film Festival and the Earthwatch Film Award. It screened at over forty film festivals, including the Sundance Film Festival. It is in the permanent film collections at the Museum of Modern Art and the UCLA/Sundance Collection.

Home media

The Inland Sea was released on LaserDisc in the United States on November 17, 1993 by the Voyager Company.^[2] It was released on Blu-ray by The Criterion Collection in 2019.^[3]

References

^ Canby, Vincent (1992-06-17). "Review/Film; Searching for Japan, In a Sea, in a Mind And in Metaphor". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-08-05.
^ McGowan, Chris (November 6, 1993). "Letterbox Format's Popularity Widens" (PDF). Billboard. p. 73. Retrieved February 4, 2024.
^ The Inland Sea Blu-ray. Blu-ray.com.

External links

The Inland Sea at IMDb
The Inland Sea at AllMovie
The Inland Sea at Rotten Tomatoes
The Inland Sea: Invitation to the Voyage an essay by Arturo Silva at the Criterion Collection

[1] Canby, Vincent (1992-06-17). "Review/Film; Searching for Japan, In a Sea, in a Mind And in Metaphor". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-08-05.

[2] McGowan, Chris (November 6, 1993). "Letterbox Format's Popularity Widens" (PDF). Billboard. p. 73. Retrieved February 4, 2024.

[3] The Inland Sea Blu-ray. Blu-ray.com.

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