WOOD JOB! (Japan, 2014)
Director: Yaguchi Shinobu
Starring: Shota Sometani, Masami Nagasawa, Hideaki Ito, Naoki Ishii, Yoki Iida 

The new film from Yaguchi Shinobu, the director of Water Boys, is based on Miura Shion’s bestseller, a bittersweet coming-of-age novel dealing with forestry (the wood job of the title… nothing dirty there), which earned praise from Studio Ghibli’s very own Hayao Miyazaki. A slim, simple, and wistful feature, Wood Job! follows protagonist Yuki Hirano (Shota Sometani), a high-school graduate so ordinary he is, in fact, way below average. After failing his university entrance exams he comes across a brochure with a sexy girl on the cover that advertises a one-year forestry program and he immediately drops his life and heads to Kamusari, a backwater village nestled deep in the mountains, far from civilization, convenience stores, and cell-phone coverage. There he meets mountain man Iida (Hideaki Ito) and learns to love their Thoreau-like lifestyle in the wild. A simple, human movie, it’s a far cry from the apocalyptic $200 million blockbusters and Hollywood destruction orgies that are currently clogging screens, and Japanese audiences responded to its message, turning it into a word-of-mouth hit.