Genpin

In her short film Tarachime, Naomi Kawase (Fipresci winner in 1997 with the Tiger Award candidate Suzaku) reflects on the birth of her son. She bore him the natural way, hence without medication or operative intervention.
In the spiritual documentary Genpin, Kawase follows gynaecologist Yoshimura Tadashi, who has already helped more than 20,000 women give birth naturally in his clinic in the middle of a forest. To prepare for the birth, Yoshimura makes them move a lot – chopping wood, ploughing the land, cleaning – and gives mental help in group sessions. And their births are strikingly pleasant and satisfying.
Kawase records it with her characteristic physical, elegant camera style, that creates a lot of intimacy with the women. Genpin is the primeval experience of being pregnant and the inextricable bond between mother and child. It is the documentary counterpart of Kawase’s successful The Mourning Forest, also about the relationship between people and Mother Earth and between life and death.

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