Anatahan

Inspired by the true story of Japanese sailors stranded on a deserted island during World War II, Anatahan (1953) was the final film completed by American émigré filmmaker Josef von Sternberg. The story takes place almost entirely on Anatahan, a former plantation island in the South Pacific where the 12 Japanese survivors of a shipwreck discover a couple who stayed behind when the island was evacuated. "We were to be here for seven long years," reports the narrator (Sternberg himself), and as they await their rescue, their discipline breaks down, as desire for Keiko (Akemi Negishi)—the lone woman in this society of men—makes them aggressive and leads to murder. After years of compromised productions, Sternberg had complete control over Anatahan, which is based on a novel by Michiro Maruyama (translated and published in English in 1954), and shot entirely in a film studio in Kyoto, Japan, where Sternberg recreated the tropical island jungle as an artificial set (long shots of the island are actually a painting, and only brief glimpses of the vast ocean and waves crashing on the rocky shore show the "real" world). Apart from the English narration, the dialogue is entirely in Japanese with no subtitles, although the drama is clear from the commentary and imagery. Anatahan feels emotionally muted and directed at a remove, like a remembrance of a survivor suffused in regret, and Sternberg cited it as his favorite film. The 1958 director's cut debuts here in a new 2K restoration edition, with extras including the original 1953 version, a “making-of” featurette with the director's son Nicholas von Sternberg, a visual essay by film historian Tag Gallagher, a comparison of the 1953 and 1958 cuts, archival footage, and outtakes. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)