Alone on the Pacific

Shot with Ichikawa's characteristically picturesque feel for the wide expanses of the 'Scope screen, this account of a yachtsman's solo trans-Pacific expedition - based on the real-life 94-day trip from Osaka to San Francisco undertaken by Kenichi Horie in 1962 - alleviates the potential tedium of its story by means of flashback inserts recalling the sailor's conflicts with a stern and dissaproving family. Storms, sharks and solitude imperil his voyage, but the real drama is psychological and spiritual: the film is ultimately a celebration of Horie's determination to free himself from a society devoted to conformism and the negation of the needs of the individual.