表面上是一套教育電視，按步就班教授如何養蠶取絲，介紹甚麼階段的蠶該吃哪種桑葉，如何移筐，如何判別蠶是否肚餓及成熟，如何上架待其作繭自縛的情況等。由幼蠶長不過汗毛，到肥肥白白可吐絲的實錄過程所產生的趣味，讓片末的村史和家族漂染史都給比下去。 　　片初，養蠶的木村太太面孔朝下，表現羞怯並且不直視攝影機，彷彿不相信自己的手藝能登大雅之堂，到中段逐笑語漸多；而全片最堅定的說話，當數她不卑不亢地透露不放心將工序交托別人，蠶蟲在自己照料下心裡會較踏實──不僅交代了拍攝者和對象之間的關係，更呈現出被拍者流露的表達欲望和自信。小川一直強調紀錄片也有「戲」，《牧野物語‧養蠶篇》乃其紀錄片方法學一次輕巧但有力的示範。

An international co-production depicting the woes and aspirations of Japan’s working poor, set in Yamagata and directed by an Englishman. Through charming and sincere revelations about his own life, he asks simple questions about Japan’s dark realities as an industrial power as he builds on friendships and changes relationships.

女人是什么？嫉妒和博爱的综合体，美丽和恐怖的双生儿化身。男人绞尽脑汁仍无法参透这些与自己相伴几千年的尤物。他们因此害怕，却又对之无法抗拒，个中心理，怪哉怪哉。 　　导演武智铁二和小林悟走访日本各个角落，拍摄从事各种职业的女性，包括：能乐舞者、游乐会拳击手、酒女、抛头露面表演的僧尼、色情杂志模特、女扮男装的剑戟师、男扮女装的异装癖、艺妓、夜总会舞者、盲人按摩师、吸毒者、普通手工业者……影片并未深入探讨女性和男性纠缠不清的莫测关系，只是通过白描的手法和戏谑的讲解向观者展示了一幅现代女性和社会的风情画。

We pick up the story on our main character's bus ride home. He sits alone, looking content, trying to pass the time. Then, something seems to get in his eye, because he rubs it and then closes the buses window. Something changes about him. He looks around and feels a strange disgust in the bus filled with quiet strangers also trying to get home and minding their own business. Pavel-Ivanovich is so disgusted that he gets off the bus several stops before his home and walks, arriving at dark. From here his story begins, and we go along for his sad ride. From that evening on he sees only sadness and wrong in everything. He can't respond to kindness, and scolds those closest to him. He offends everyone. At his work he tries to go against as many people as possible, and hurt ordinary citizens too. He also feels that everyone is against him. His condition seems to worsen. How will all this end. Sure this can't be the end for Pavel-Ivanovich, a good man somewhere deep inside. 　　The brilliance of this film lies in the main character's deep state of mind. His suffering. The fact that he hurts everyone around him, feels horrible about it but still does it until he almost loses everything. If you like film's where you feel that you can relate or feel the character's emotions, you might like this film. An incredible pressure is built up throughout the film, and the last scene, for me at least, magically lifts it, if only for a couple of seconds. 　　This is a strange film, and I don't say that a lot. It is very hard to describe, but the main elements that drive the feel of this film are the main character's state of mind and the music (more than half of the film has incredible original music playing in the background). Daneliya's films have incredible music like in Autumn Marathon, Kin-Dza-Dza, and Thirty-Three. Daneliyaa was into jazz and played drums in a band way back before he started making film so his films are very rich in music. Also this film is sad, but is also a comedy. All these elements mix to make an incredible movie

Perhaps the most enjoyable Oliveira film I've watched so far also proved to be the most frustrating experience (through no fault of the genial Portuguese director, whom I saw at the 2004 Venice Film Festival): unfortunately, the copy shown on late-night Italian TV was of an atrocious quality – with intermittent picture loss, rampant pixellation and considerable stretches where the dialogue was so low and muffled as to be barely audible (thankfully, the movie was presented in its original language accompanied by Italian subtitles), despite the volume of my TV being practically set at its maximum level! The irony is that this was scheduled again on the very same channel just the other week and, had I known of the poor state of my copy, I'd have tried to record it again…though, of course, I would've had no guarantee that they were able get hold of a superior print unless I went through the whole thing over again! 　　Anyway, having seen it, I'm now able to understand how Oliveira felt so completely at home making that Bunuelian tribute BELLE TOUJOURS (2006); in fact, this has much the same aura of elegant surrealism evident in the Spaniard's contemporaneous masterpiece THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE (1972), while throughout Oliveira displays an admirably Ophulsian propensity for intricately mobile camera-work. The premise is original and quite delightful: a woman has lost a husband and remarried; she used to despise the former but, now, she realizes how much she actually loved him and, consequently, starts to neglect Spouse No. 2. Also, the first husband had an identical twin brother – so the wife feels closer to him than her current husband; the latter, humiliated by this awkward situation, commits suicide! Then, the sibling of the deceased confesses that he's actually the man she married and that it was his twin who had died (he just had the inexplicable urge to exchange identities with him!); so, the ex-bride and groom go to court to make their re-union legal…except that, by this time, it dawns on her that Husband No. 2 is the one she truly loves! 　　Amid all this, their close circle of friends try to make head or tails of the woman's whims and quirks; further complications, however, arise out of the subplot involving a man who makes passes at two of the women (one's married, the other happily cohabiting with her divorced ex!). The latter turns him down flat, while his affair with the former proves no less volatile than the leading lady's roundabout ways; the man, then, deliberately picks a fight with his lover's husband – who had earlier also exchanged harsh words with the heroine's cynical second husband. Though lacking perhaps the cheerful mockery that Bunuel managed to bring to this essentially staid environment (even if the Mendelssohn score still lends it undeniable irony), Oliveira's script is both intelligent and witty – to which his small cast of unknown actors (to me, at least) respond extremely well. These extend to even the minor roles of butler and maid: apart from indulging in their own romantic dalliances from time to time, the butler is visibly annoyed in having to attend to the mansion's gates after every vehicle that calls at the premises (in fact, apart from a brief flashback and the church finale, we're virtually stuck on the grounds of this single location). He also witnesses the second husband's fatal leap from the window as well as the wife's escape from the very same room (in which she's been locked by Spouse No. 1 after her passion for his replacement is re-ignited), while the maid has no qualms about spying on her masters' violent squabbles through a keyhole. 　　The ironic ending sees all concerned attending the wedding ceremony of a young bride and groom – with the central couple entering the church together but then taking separate seats away from one another because of lack of room; the emphasis placed on the newlyweds' promises of lifelong devotion obviously ring hollow at this point while, seemingly on a whim, Oliveira decides to end the film on an amusing shot of the church organist (sporting the somewhat clichéd unkempt appearance of the typical musicologist). It should be said here that PAST AND PRESENT is the first entry in the director's so-called "Tetralogy Of Frustrated Love" along with BENILDE OR THE VIRGIN MOTHER (1975), the five-hour TV serial DOOMED LOVE (1979) – both of which I own and intend to check out presently, as part of my ongoing retrospective honoring Oliveira's 100th birthday next month – and the as-yet unavailable FRANCISCA (1981).