BARUTO - LOST IN TRANSITION

The Estonian sumo wrestler Kaido suddenly finds himself a hero in Japan but the journey from a small Estonian village to Tokyo’s international wrestling stage is not an easy transition, and trouble brews.

197 cm and 172 kg Kaido Höövelson is not a guy you’d miss. He takes up wrestling and all of a sudden he enters the world of sumo wrestling in Japan. After living in Japan for little more than a year he gets to Juryo – the lower step of sumo elite league.

But rising so fast almost automatically means pitfalls and an unexpected one occurs. Kaido needs surgery before an important tournament. He has to miss the whole tournament and drops out of the elite league. This means losing twenty times his wages as well as all the privileges of the sumo stable. Even worse, he has to start cleaning the rooms of the stable, doing kitchen duty, and sleeping in the same little room as all the other wrestlers. After recovering, he is more motivated than ever to succeed and is back in Juryo after just one tournament in the lower league. He wins his next basho in Juryo with a record-breaking 15-0 victory and proceeds to the highest league, Makuuchi. His rise continues; within three tournaments he is among the top ten and achieves the sort of stardom usually associated with rock stars.

But the film is not only about success. It is an important study of the culture gap viewed through the eyes of a man who went from a small rural country to a country hundred times as big. The film introduces the tough traditional sumo wrestling rules and hierarchies, the Shinto religion, as well as modern Japanese life and attitudes in Japan towards sumo and the foreigners practicing the sport.

Baruto, meaning ”Man from the Baltics” in Japanese

Release year:

February 2008

Director:

Artur Talvik

Running length:

52 minutes

Production company:

RUUT

 

Categories:

• People & Culture