[Music] i wake peacefully on the shores of the sea of japan in the quiet little town of suzu on the northern tip of the notto peninsula despite being part of the main island of honshu an hour's flight from tokyo this small finger of land is quite cut off from the rest of the country i came to this region to track down an ancestral practice which only occurs here once a year during winter and which is called the anakoto the anakoto is said to be a ceremony during which a man succeeds in contacting a spirit of nature [Music] from november to march winter imposes its harsh yet magnificent presence here [Music] nature has great importance in japan because each natural phenomenon each tree each river each rock is inhabited by a spirit which is known here as a kami [Music] sometimes nature speaks clearly to me like this rock which looks like the bow of a ship and of which one legend tells that it was here that one of the founding monks of japanese buddhism discovered a magic stick [Music] but i can feel the magic elsewhere hidden somewhere between things and i strive to film these landscapes whilst trying to capture a glimpse of the invisible [Music] [Applause] [Music] the japanese mainly believe in two religions buddhism and shinto to understand i have to begin by learning so i'm going to visit a priest in a shinto temple [Music] i am aware of how lucky i am to attend this intimate ceremony because unlike buddhist temples in which followers are welcomed shinto temples are reserved for priests people coming to pray for the kami must remain outside [Music] [Music] the spirits which live in this temple it's a prayer for life for people's happiness and health it is to thank the spirits and to ask them to protect us [Music] paper has great symbolism in shinto it has different meanings the strips of paper folded into zigzag indicate the presence of a kami and in any case that's where it resides when it's in the temple when attached to a long handle the strips purify the air when waved about shinto is characterized by a belief in nature and the spirits which inhabit it so it is an amalgam of beliefs and rights but there is no book like the bible nor any doctrine dictating behavior but rather a multitude of spirits which people believe in there are shinto temples all over japan and each of them is home to its own spirits [Music] so the temples don't only exist in natural settings they are also present in big cities because even when surrounded by concrete nature continues to exist and to exert its influence moreover the prayers we say for the rice in the countryside are the same as those in the city [Music] [Music] [Music] rice plays a part in our lives throughout the year because it has grown everywhere in the region rice also means roots it's our nourishment our culture our routine what's more we are currently right in the middle of the anakoto season [Music] this was an important meeting for me it made me understand that the spirits the kami are everywhere and one must respect them as much as be wary of them i leave the temple to the sound of the shinto music pondering the priest's last words on the subject of the anakoto i still don't know what this ceremony consists of i just know that it's about spirits and rice fields [Music] you