Taiheiyô hitoribotchi

A film about a lonely figure piloting his one-man sailboat across the wide expanse of the Pacific Ocean would seem to pose an insurmountable narrative logistical threat, but director Kon Ichikawa turns an unlikely true story into an unusual study of isolation and personal achievement. Ken-Ichi Horie was an obstinate amateur sailor obsessed with the challenge of a solo journey across the world's largest ocean, and in 1962 he fulfilled his ambitions (succeeding almost in spite of himself) in a 92-day passage that proved to be less an ordeal than a comic misadventure. Using a choppy visual style and a claustrophobic wide-screen camera, Ichikawa shows the intrepid traveler at the mercy of both the elements and his own inexperience, ending with his anticlimactic arrival in San Francisco, victorious but asleep on his feet. The alternate title of the film was 'My Enemy, the Sea', a misnomer since, for all its impassive antagonism, the ocean was Horie's only true friend, allowing him the freedom he never knew on land.