By the early 1980s, Ogawa Productions was well into a massive film about rice and village history, when an unusual cold front caused serious crop damage in a village deep in the mountains behind Magino. Furuyashiki was a prototypical mountain village, with thatched roofs and deep, deep snow. Ogawa plays with the conventions of the science documentary to examine the crop damage problem, while penetrating deep into the history of the village. In this tiny mountain hamlet, he finds the entire history of Japan – from ancient sea creatures through the catastrophe of WWII to the quiet violence of the economic miracle. As one old man says, “We thought the paved road would bring modernity; instead, it made it easier for the young people to leave.”