JAPAN, the land of extremes

There are plenty of good reasons to visit Japan. Few countries are the subject of so many preconceived ideas, so many clichés, so many misinterpretations.

The approach of this film is to try and find the right entry points... and if there is an instruction manual, it's through the most esteemed arts that the Japanese soul is best approached. The art of gardens, the art of gastronomy, the art of tea, the art of flowers, the art of paper, the art of bathing, the art of architecture and many others. Because in Japan, the essential always tends towards excellence.

The first part of the film is devoted to Tokyo. To its architectural excess, to the tangle of its suspended highways, to its forests of sky-defying towers. But also to the everyday life of Tokyoites who, in the shadow of concrete, preserve the oldest festivals and traditions despite futurism.

The second part crosses islands and countryside, and tackles the same unavoidable themes of the Japanese art of living and thinking.

These two parts, far from ignoring each other, live together in the rich present and past they share.

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