Susanne Rostock on The Naked Island When I was a student at Columbia University in 1969 I would go almost every day to a wonderful cinema called the New Yorker. One day The Naked Island came on. I knew nothing about it, and it took my breath away. Until I saw it, I didn't fully understand how deeply relevant filmmaking could be. I realised you could actually change a person's whole perception of life in a 90-minute movie. It's the story of a mother and father and two young sons who are the only inhabitants on an island off the coast of Japan. They have no fresh water and try to grow rice on land that is quite arid. The film shows the rhythm of their life. There's virtually no dialogue; the focus is mainly the work. One of the sons falls ill and the father has to travel to the mainland to get a doctor. But it takes too long. At the very last moment of the film, the mother lets out a scream of anguish that I can hear to this day. It's really the only verbal sound in the whole film, and is an allegory about life's pain and beauty. The Naked Island won a prize at Cannes the year it was released, in 1960, but by 1969 it had been forgotten. Yet I think it has a universal message. It makes you think about your own struggles. The rhythm in the movie is important, it's almost a dance. This is not a light film, but there's a heroic struggle and it's uplifting in the fact that people accept their life and they move through it with dignity. It makes the minutiae of everyday life extremely powerful. Sing Your Song" is re-released on June 8