Haibun travelogue by Matsuo Bashô, adapted from the translation of Sam Hamill

From the film Basho, directed by Babak Gray (full credits here)

IMDb describes the full-length film as just 8 minutes long, so this YouTube selection must comprise most of it. It also seems to be an authorized upload — Damien Daniel was the cinematographer for Basho.

I found this a very welcome relief from the general run of Orientalist tripe that turns up when one searches the English-language Internet for videos of East Asian poetry. It might not provide the sort of lesson in compassion that most modern admirers of Japanese Buddhism would wish for, however.

Nozarashi Kikô, also translated as Record of a Weather-Exposed Skeleton, was published in 1684, the first of four haibun travelogues Bashô wrote (the most famous being Oku no Hosomichi — The Narrow Road to the Far North). As the Wikipedia puts it,

Traveling in medieval Japan was immensely dangerous, and at first Bashô expected to simply die in the middle of nowhere or be killed by bandits. As the trip progressed, his mood improved and he became comfortable on the road. He met many friends and grew to enjoy the changing scenery and the seasons. His poems took on a less introspective and more striking tone as he observed the world around him. [...] The trip took him from Edo to Mount Fuji, Ueno, and Kyoto.