Top Japanese Art Animation DVDs of the Decade

For fans of art animation and experimental film, the ‘naughties’ have been an exceptional decade in terms of the wider availability of both individual films and collections. Previously, such films were only available to a lucky few privileged enough to have an animation festival, art house cinema, or cinémathèque in their community. The life story of an animated short usually went follows:

1. the artist labours intensively for months in a studio
2. the artist presents the film locally to great acclaim
3. the film gets picked up by international festivals
4. after a year of touring, the film fades into obscurity
5. if the filmmaker is lucky, the film gets featured periodically in retrospectives at animation festivals

In the past decade, however, art animation and experimental film has become much more widely available and via video-streaming sites many filmmakers have picked up new fans who previously would not have been likely to encounter their work. Thanks to the efforts of companies like Geneon Universal and Image Forum, not to mention collectives like Anido, the complete works of significant animators have become available on DVD. Younger artists like Tomoyasu Murata, Naoyuki Tsuji, and Yasuhiro Yoshiura have worked hard to promote themselves either through self-incorporation (Murata) or coordination with other production companies. Some of the more farseeing entrepreneurs of the contemporary art animation scene like Yoshiura and Kato Kunio, have allowed their work to be made available on video streaming and downloading sites like Yahoo Japan and crunchyroll.

The order of the DVDs listed below is not a true ranking. There are too many variables to consider for such a thing. To be included in this list, the DVD merely had to contain content that I believe is of important cultural and historical content. I haven’t been able to view the recently released complete works of Takashi Ito yet, but as the other Image Forum DVDs are of such a high quality I presume that it is equally as good. Clicking on most of the images below will take you to the DVD’s listing at cdjapan.co.jp. Most of films do not require subtitles for enjoyment (exceptions: Okamoto, Kawamoto, Tezuka). Some more farseeing organizations like Ufer! do think about the international appeal of their artists (ie Tabaimo) and provide subtitles. Others, like Geneon, should really make more of an effort in this area. Some artists like Kawamoto and Tezuka can be found on DVD in English speaking countries. The exception to this is Naoyuki Tsuji, whose Facets DVD should be avoided (read why here) – his work does not require subtitles to be enjoyed.

I am looking forward to the 2010s and hoping that even more animation gems will make their way onto DVD or another digital format soon. To read about which ones, see my earlier piece here.

Complete Works of Tadanari Okamoto (Boxset, Geneon, 2009)


Winter Days (Kihachiro Kawamoto et al., Kinokuniya Shoten, 2003)


Thinking and Drawing: Japanese Art of the New Millennium (Image Forum, 2005)


Tokyo Loop (Taku Furukawa et al., Image Forum, 2006)


Murata Tomoyasu Selection – Ore no Michi (Tomoyasu Murata Company, 2004)


Book of the Dead (Kihachirō Kawamoto, Geneon, 2007)


The Complete Works of Kihachirō Kawamoto (Geneon, 2007)


The Complete Works of Yōji Kuri (Geneon, 2007)


Atama Yama – The Complete Works of Kōji Yamamura (Geneon, 2006)


Tanaamism Boxset (Keiichi Tanaami, Broadway, 2003)


Trilogy About Clouds (Naoyuki Tsuji, Columbia, 2005)

Available at cdjapan








Scrap Diary + Animactions! (Keiichi Tanaami & Aihara Nobuhiro, 2004)


amazon lists this DVD as being out of print, but Tsutaya claims they have it









hatsu-imo (Tabaimo & Yasushi Kishimoto, Ufer!, 2001)


available for purchase at Ufer!






Kinomaya / Maya Yonesho Abstract Animation Works (Anido, 2008)


availabe at anido





Yume ga Shagandeiru (Tomoyasu Murata, 2008)




available for purchase at tomoyasu.net





Pale Cocoon (Yasuhiro Yoshiura, Avex Trax, 2006)


The Complete Experimental Films of Osamu Tezuka (Geneon, 2007)


The Complete Works of Takashi Itō (Image Forum, 2009)


Available at cdjapan

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2009

Murata Joint (村田関節)

Have you ever wanted to try your hand at puppet animation but didn't know where to start? Tomoyasu Murata (村田朋泰), one of Japan's most prolific independent animators, has recently introduced his own line of armatures. In puppet animation, the armature acts as the skeleton or frame upon which figures are built. Some animators make their own armature using simple tools such as wire and endnuts, as is shown in this demonstration video. Armature can also be bought at art supply shops. Murata is selling a complete set for a human figure online for ¥18,900. Pieces can also be bought individually for ¥2,000 per unit. To see Murata's own puppets in actions, check out the short trailers for his films on his website, or Mr. Children's music video for the song Hero. His films are also available on DVD. Learn more about him by reading the numerous reviews of his films on this blog or Midnight Eye.

Tomoyasu Murata Sakuhinshu - Ore no Michi

Shiro no Michi [w/ Picture Book, Limited Release]

Suiren no Hito

PLANET 51 - harmless, disposable fun

PLANET 51 is the Meg Ryan of kids animation. It's not flashy, ground-breaking or breath-taking. Rather, it's harmless, banal, and mildy amusing in parts. As Christmas entertainment for bored kids, you could fare worse, but this is no TOY STORY.

The concept is clever. Instead of aliens invading earth, with all the predictable genre-defining consequences, earthlings invade an alien planet. Or rather, a narcissistic astronaut (voiced by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) lands on a planet of little green men and women. The kicker is that the aliens are just as versed in pop culture and B-movies, and are just as petrified of the "alien" as we would be. In fact, one of the most memorable and endearing things about this film is the beautiful and witty translation of the look of late 1950s/early 1960s small-town America to the alien planet.

Unfortunately, the story doesn't really live up to the concept, because there really isn't one. The astronaut lands, gets separated from his ship, hides out with our alien teen hero (Justin Long) and then tries to get back to his ship. On the way, his robot (a dead ringer for Wall-E) tries to hook up with him and his alien helper tries to hook up with a hot alien chick (Jessica Biel). The problem is that the guy we're meant to empathise with as our hero is pretty whiny and dull, and the other person we might empathise with, the astronaut, is an insufferable bore. It's never good when the little robot has more personality than the hero. (As a sidenote, I also don't get why Dwayne Johnson couldn't have voiced a coloured astronaut?)

So, where does that leave us? PLANET 51 works well as a namecheck of alien invasion classics, and adults will get a certain kick out of that. There's probably enough slapstick humour, not to mention the cute robot, and that'll keep the kids happy. Happy, but in a sort of disposable, single-serving way.

PLANET 51 was released in November in the US, Malaysia, Peru, Russia, Ukraine, Canada, Italy, Argentina, Georgia, Greece, Kazakhstan, Brazil, Cyprus, Mexico and Spain. It opened earlier in December in the Philippines, Germany, Kuwait, Portugal, Iceland, the UK, Australia, Israel, New Zealand, Singapore, Bulgaria, Panama and Venezuela. It opens tomorrow in Turkey and on December 31st in Slovenia. It opens in Finland on January 1st, in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Sweden on January 14th. It opens in France on February 3rd and in Belgium and the Netherlands on February 10th.

Merry Christmas

One of Keita Funamoto's animation students 'Izumi' put together this festive animation. Merry Christmas to you all. Thank you for your support throughout 2009.

DISTRICT 9 - a re-review

So some nice movie folk sent me a DISTRICT 9 BluRay disc and I took the opportunity to rewatch one of the most original sci-fi flicks of the year. I haven't fundamentally changed my opinion of the movie, which you can read here. The movie is two thirds superb satire of South African politics; brilliantly conceived mockumentary; and re-casting of the sci-fi genre. I still love the down and dirty look of the film. I still admire the way that the director and co-writer, Neill Blomkamp, balances comedy and action. And I still think that shot of the alien spaceship hovering over Jo-burg is iconic. Admittedly, I also still think that the final third of the film descends into a mindless shootemup/buddy movie that's entertaining but in a more lo-rent way than the first two thirds of the film.

The plus point of the BD disc is that special effects flicks really do look cool on HD - even a special effects flick that's fundamentally fighting against the Hollywood-glossy look. As for the extras, the director's commentary is also pretty insightful. You get the feeling that Blomkamp knew exactly what he wanted for this film, and it's pretty amazing that he took on such a technically ambitious project for his first feature. You also get to find out how he got involved with Peter Jackson, and thus got the funding to turn his short into a feature. I was most fascinated by his anecdotes about how the political situation in South Africa fed into the movie - sometimes in an unforeseen manner. For instance, it was after shooting began that the violence against Zimbabwean refugees took place - violence that echoes the reaction of the poor South Africans toward the "prawns" in the flick.

There's also around 90 minutes worth of short docs explaining everything from the improvisation process to the sound design, CGI special effects and old-fashioned prosthetics. As with all of these kinds of extras, they typically contain more information than you actually need or care about unless you're a complete fan-boy. The only one I found interesting, as someone who liked the film but isn't a fanatic, was the segment on the physical effects transforming Wikus into a prawn.

Stuff that didn't work so well: the MovieIQ feature, that's meant to use your internet connection to give interesting little factoids throughout the film, wasn't working because the server was down. Also, why oh why oh why do movie distributors try to cross sell with up front ads? Why do I have to fast forward through a Michael Jackson ad to get to my film?!

DISTRICT 9 is released on DVD/BluRay on December 28th.

Tokyo Godfathers (東京ゴッドファーザーズ, 2003)

If you are looking for a good Christmas movie to watch during the holiday season but without the saccharine schmaltz that usually goes hand-in-hand with such films, then look no further than Kon Satoshi’s 2003 animated feature film Tokyo Godfathers (東京ゴッドファーザーズ). Be warned, however, that although this film is animated it is not a family Christmas film. . . unless your kids are mature enough to deal with issues of child abandonment, homelessness, acts of terrorism, and transvestite hostess bars.

The film opens with an idyllic image of a baby in a manger and a child in the role of one of the three wise men reciting lines from the nativity play. A choir then breaks out into Kiyoshi kono Yoru (きよしこの夜, the Japanese version of Silent Night), followed by a preacher giving a Christmas sermon. The audience is filled with homeless people who have come for the promised free dinner at the end of the service. Among the homeless in the audience are two of the three title characters of the film: Gin, a middle-aged alcoholic who is very cynical about the sermon, and Hana, an okama (transvestite gay man) who enjoys the elevated rhetoric. After visiting the soup kitchen, the two meet up with the third member of this unlikely trio: Miyuki. Miyuki-chan is runaway teen who is introduced spitting on strangers from the rooftop of a tall building. Together the three have formed a kind of surrogate family for themselves with Hana taking on a kind of motherly role.

While bickering in their garbage-filled adopted home they discover an abandoned baby girl. In honour of Christmas Eve, they name the baby Kiyoko which means “pure child”. After some debate about what to do, they decide to put off notifying the police in order to first try tracking down Kiyoko’s mother themselves. For each of the three this marks the beginning of personal journeys that will in the course of the film reveal the complex, painful stories of how they each ended up homeless.

To audiences today, the title of this film immediately conjures up images of Francis Ford Coppola`s Godfather films. However, while the yakuza do make a brief appearance in the film, Satoshi Kon (今敏, b. 1963: Perfect Blue, Paprika) and screenwriter Keiko Nobumoto (信本敬子, b. 1964: Wolf’s Rain, Cowboy Bebop) actually found their inspiration elsewhere. The title refers to one of John Ford’s lesser known Westerns 3 Godfathers (1948) starring John Wayne, Harry Carey, Jr., and Pedro Armedáriz. The story itself has an even older provenance as a bestselling novel in 1913 by Peter B. Keyne. Before the John Wayne adaptation, the story had already been adapted five times, of which two films are considered lost. Two of the films starred Harry Carey, Jr.’s father, the legendary character actor Harry Carey (1878-1947), one of which was also directed by John Ford.

The original story told the tale of three bank robbers who become the unlikely godfathers of a newborn child at the mother’s deathbed. Kon and Nobumoto likely drew their inspiration from the 1946 John Ford adaptation. John Ford’s films have been highly influential on the style and aesthetic of many Japanese directors, most notably Akira Kurosawa. Tokyo Godfathers does not use the aesthetic of John Ford (claustrophobic Tokyo instead of wide open landscapes), but it does address some of the core themes of a Ford film: human dignity, ethical imperative and psychologically complex central characters. The film is also structured much like a Ford film with dualities of meaning throughout the text.

In essence, Kon and Nobumoto have taken an American story and transformed it into a modern Japanese story concerning the issue of child abandonment. This issue has been covered in the Japanese media for at least 30 years, with Ryu Murakami tackling the subject in his deeply troubling novel Coin Locker Babies (1980 – rumoured to be in development as a film by Michele Civetta). The problem was even recently addressed by Jikei hospital in Kumamoto who adopted a baby drop off based on European models because of the numbers of babies being abandoned in supermarkets and parks. Sometimes, such troubling stories are difficult to address in a live action feature film. If such controversial topics are developed into features, they are usually low budget because it is hard to attract an audience for such hard-hitting fare. Animation allows for such complex issues to be addressed in a way that it accessible to a wide audience.

For me, Tokyo Godfathers joins an elite group of films that use animation to tell stories that may be too painful to realize successfully in live action. Other films in this category would include Takahata’s Grave of the Fireflies (1988, children suffering in times of war), Miyazaki’s My Neighbour Totoro (1998, children’s fantasy used as a way to negotiate the fear of a mother’s death), Kinoshita’s Pica-don (1978, a depiction of the morning the atomic bomb destroyed Hiroshima), Masaki Mori’s Barefoot Gen (1983, also depicts Hiroshima). The genius of Tokyo Godfathers is that despite the bleak subject matter, Kon was able to inject enough humour and benevolence into the film so that the audience leaves the film with a sense of the redeeming features of humanity.

3 Godfathers [Limited Pressing]

Tokyo Godfathers

Tokyo Godfathers - Deluxe Box [Limited Release]

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2009

An Excoriating and Witty Review of Star Wars The Phantom Menace

Thanks to Malcatraz for the tip off. Be sure to continue to Part 7. Despite the funny tone, this reviewer has a lot of incisive analysis on how genre cinema should work and why The Phantom Menace doesn't. He even has some amazing behind the scenes footage. Maybe he was an insider? The worst part is where the Editor of the film delivers the most devastating critique of the denouement, and even Lucas seems to admit that the thing is a mess, but that it's too late to disentangle it.

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE - weather with you

Spike Jonze, the visionary director behind BEING JOHN MALKOVICH and ADAPTATION, returns to the big screen with an adaptation of Maurice Sendak's iconic children's book. The book is slight, dark but also joyful: a little boy called Max throws a tantrum, is sent to his room, and disappears into an imaginary world of wild things. The wild rumpus if fun, but he grows lonely and returns home in time for his supper, which is still hot! BBC Radio 4 produced a marvellous programme on the book and its iconic status, interviewing Sendak. He said he thought the book was radical because Max wasn't a WASP but a little Jewish kid, and because Max wasn't a classic innocent child but a realistic rage-filled, energy-filled little boy. And after all, he had it both ways - King in his imaginary world, but also welcomed back into his home.

Spike Jonze and writer David Eggers have taken the slender meat in the book and spun it out into a beautifully rendered, overwhelmingly dark and pyschologically truthful film about the fears and resentments of childhood. In truth, there isn't much joy left in it, and I'm not sure what kids will make of it. But for adults, the film is a deeply emotionally affecting depiction of what it's like to be a child, and indeed, the pressures on parents in a modern world of working parents and divorce.

The first hour of the film gives us the reality of little Max (Max Records), a nine year old kid growing up in the snowy American burbs. His elder sister is too busy being a teen to hang with him, his working mum (Catherine Keener) tries her best to give him attention but has her own stress to deal with. He loves mischief - instigating a snowball fight with his sister's friends - but gets scared when the fight gets out of control and they smash his igloo. The film is full of visual references to kids seeking small dark places to hide and feel safe in, but that safety being intruded upon. It's also full of play fights that have real emotional consequences. In these early scenes, I love the efficiency with which Jonze and Eggers essay Max's emotional life. The fight that triggers his running away comes out of nowhere. I also love the freedom of the camera, capturing with handheld the rumpus, but also shooting from Max's POV and height. There's a lovely scene where Max is sitting under his mum's desk tugging at her tights - a wonderfully intimate moment but also hinting at his need to express himself and incapability of doing so with words.

By the second half hour, Max has run away from his house having thrown a tantrum and bitten his mother on the shoulder - a highly charged scene. He takes a boat and through scary waves, lands in the land of the wild things. There he meets a loose collective of monsters and becomes their king, starting play-fights that soon sour. All of these monsters are expressions of Max's own insecurities and fears - the fear of not fitting in, of being abandoned for cooler friends, of not being understood, of not being loved, of sadness. The fear that doing a robot dance won't make his mum happy and won't make the monsters happy either.

I love this section for its wonderful visual style. When Carol (James Gandolfini) takes Max to see his model world, it really is magical. There's a kind of magic to the simple mastery of making and doing rather than CGI wizardry. That translates to the monsters themselves. They are giant muppets that have been ever so lightly CGI animated to show the facial expressions of the actors voicing them. It's a really wonderful result - they look real, they have weight, but they also look, well, muppety enough to have come from a kids imagination. I also love the wry humour. Classic example: Max and Carol are walking through a desert and an absolutely enormous monster appears on the horizon. Carol dismisses it as a harmless pup: "don't feed it or he'll follow you around." But there's no denying that this section is also pretty much a constant downer. The monsters talk like a bunch of depressed characters from a Woody Allen film, filled with neuroses about failed relationships and low self-esteem. They speak in phrases that kids must hear and not quite understand. They have an abiding sadness that poor Max can't shift because, after all, he's not a real king.

In the final section, emotions come to a head. Some of the monsters realise that Max favours KW and Carol - that's he not an equal opps king. And then they realise that he's not really a king at all. And then, most crucially, as Max tries to convince KW about the need for family and why she should return "home" to Carol, he also realises that he too needs to go home. What is learned? Maybe not much. Max always loved his mum, and still has trouble expressing himself. The rage and the fear are still there.

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE is a brave, bold and beautifully imagined movie that takes us into the psyche of a kid who has trouble expressing himself. Is it a kids film? Not sure. But it is certainly a superb film about being a kid, and about being a parent. It is uncompromising, challenging, dark, scary and makes you cry. Spike Jonze remains one of the most fascinating directors working today.

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE was released in October in the USA, Canada and Italy. It was released in November in the Ukraine, Malaysia, the Czech Republic and Romania. It is currently on release in Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Denmark, Lithuania, Norway, Turkey, the UK, France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria and Spain. It opens on December 30th in Belgium. It opens in January in Brazil, Singapore, Finland, Taiwan, the Netherlands, Japan, Argentina, Greece, Portugal, Venezuela and Sweden. It opens on February 4th in Russia.

ST TRINIAN'S 2: THE LEGEND OF FRITTON'S GOLD - too few genuine laughs

I rather liked the 2007 St Trinian's remake. It was cheeky, rather fun, but in a rather charmingly lo-rent way. Rupert Everett dressing up in drag to play Camilla Fritton, headmistress of the most anarchic school in England, was a fun antidote to all those airbrushed teen-rom-com flicks starring Amanda Bynes and Emma Roberts. I liked the visual humour and Colin Firth sending up his Mr Darcy image.

So it was with some anticipation that I watched the sequel, ST TRINIAN'S 2: THE LEGEND OF FRITTON'S GOLD. The story is rather clever in that it build's on St Trinian's anarcho-feminism. It turns out that an ancestor of headmistress Camilla Fritton (Everett) and new head girl Anabelle Fritton (Talulah Riley) was a swashbuckling pirate who hijacked gold from Lord Pomfrey - an anti-feminist who was going to use the loot to dethrone Elizabeth I. In the present day, Piers Pomfrey (David Tennant) is trying to steal the treasure back. The girls have to follow clues to London, find the gold and defeat the scoundrelous enemy, with the help of old head girl (Gemma Arterton) and Camilla's love-interest Geoffrey Thwaites (Colin Firth).

The film succeeds in some of the same ways as the original. There is a lot of visual humour around the production design of the school, and a certain lo-rent charm to the way it's been put together. Unfortunately, it does not have the verbal wit of the original. Indeed, there are very few genuinely laugh-out loud moments. The film misses Gemma Arterton in a starring role, and didn't really use Girls Aloud's Sarah Harding in a sensible manner. I know that most of the actresses are passed their school days, but Sarah Harding strains credibility as a current school girl - surely she would have been better used as a returning old head girl? In general, I feel the film might have benefited from spending more time at school, generating humour from the absurdities of a St Trinian's education, and less time chasing for gold in London. Ultimately, it just doesn't work.

ST TRINIANS 2: THE LEGEND OF FRITTON'S GOLD is on release in the UK.

NINE - a series of songs sung by women who are basically in love with a shit

Rob Marshall directed two movies before NINE and I didn't like either of them. His movies are pretty on the surface and are obviously the product of much care and attention to detail. But somehow they miss the essential point of the story, not to mention any subtlety or subversion. And this is a major flaw in movies that deal with the the appearance and reality of sexual domination (MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA) and sexual and judicial corruption (CHICAGO).

And yet, still flush with the some-time success of CHICAGO, Marshall had the ambition to tackle NINE, a movie adaptation of a Broadway musical that was itself an adaptation of Fellini's seminal movie - perhaps one of the greatest movies of all time - 8 1/2. How can I explain to you what a technical, psychological and dramatic achievement Fellini's film was? It was a movie that dared to depict the impossibility and insanity of trying to create art in a commercial, celebrity-obsessed environment. Even more daring, it was a movie that threw its own director's psyche onto the screen - his narcissism, his eroticism, his conflicted relationship with his childhood, his relationship with his mother, his wife, his lovers....8 1/2 was a movie so radical and so brilliant that it redefined cinema. It was a movie so great that other directors tried to compete with it and came up short - Henri Georges Clouzot, with his INFERNO, had a heart attack trying.

If great artists have tried and failed to match Fellini, what can we say about Broadway composer and lyricist, Arthur Kopit and Maury Yeston? Sadly not much. Yes, they have gotten the bare bones of the story - the narcissistic movie director battling writer's block and a kind of personal crisis - running between his wife and his lover - but never finding the pure adoration that only an Italian mother can give. But they fail to translate Fellini's daring and subversion to the Broadway stage. Worse still, the songs are rather anonymous. "Be Italian" has a decent melody but the rest are utterly forgettable. Worse still, the lyrics have none of the rapier-like wit of CHICAGO or CABARET. No, this is a poor vehicle indeed on which to hang a Hollywood film.

Rob Marshall takes poor fare and does nothing to improve it. Yes, there are a couple of new songs but none of them have any more punch than the originals. Indeed, the 60s pastiche Cinema Italiano, is truly bad. Worst of all, Marshall didn't have the balls to change the incredibly weak opening number. And, after all, what's a song and dance show without a bravura opening number? Catherine Zeta Jones in CHICAGO gripped the audience.

Okay, so the music is weak - hardly Marshall's fault. What about the purely cinematic choices? The casting is variable in its success. Daniel Day-Lewis is either miscast as the director, Guido Contini, or mis-directed by Marshall. Day-Lewis' attempt at an Italian accent distracts from his perfect physical embodiment of the distracted, harrassed, hunch-shouldered director. Penelope Cruz and Judi Dench have a lot of fun and perform with gusto as Guido's lover and loyal friend. Marion Cotillard is superb as Guido's suffering wife. Fergie of The Black Eyed Peas is the best singer and performer by far in the best song in the piece, despite Marshall saddling her with frightful hair and make-up and entirely missing the eroticism of the encounter with the kid. Less happily, we have Nicole Kidman doing nothing special as the Anita Ekberg inspired movie star Claudia. Sophia Loren survives on her iconic status. Kate Hudson is entirely out of her depth but luckily only has to do a MTV dance routine before she's off stage. Her part is entirely disposable.

Most importantly, Marshall doesn't attempt to translate the complexity at the heart of the piece. And without that, Guido comes across as merely annoying, unsympathetic and whiny - a big kid with a mamma complex and an over-extended libido. The women, with the exception of the wife, are not really developed. As a consequence, when one of them does something dramatic, it seems not so much out of character, as we don't know what her character really is, but out of the blue. It's just hard to care. The movie becomes a series of songs sung by women who are basically in love with a shit. And frankly, there's nothing entertaining about that.

NINE is on release in the US, UK and Slovenia. It opens next week in Greece and Canada. It opens in January in Israel, the Netherlands, South Korea, Cyprus, Denmark, Brazil, Italy, Australia, Spain, Taiwan and Romania. It opens in February in Argentina, Hungary, Sweden, France, Finland, Belgium, Germany and Singapore. It opens in March in Japan.

AVATAR - you can have too much of a good thing

AVATAR is the much hyped new film from writer-director and special effects obsessive James Cameron - the man who brought us TITANIC, ALIENS and TERMINATOR. Let us say that James Cameron has consistently pushed forward the technology of film, and has produced consistently thoughtful sci-flicks. Indeed, I would argue that he deserves more kudos than Spielberg - creating fewer but more consistently entertaining and polished blockbusters. But let us also admit that Cameron is the master of hyping himself, and has saddled us both with Celine Dion and with a 130 minute movie of arse-numbing proportions.

First, the praise. AVATAR is a technical marvel. Not because it does anything new - rather, it pulls together all of the advances of the last five years and pushes them further and does them better than anyone else. The 3-D is immersive rather than trying to shock us. The CGI is photo realistic. The characters and animals have weight and heft. The natural science detailing on the plants and animals is breathtaking. Fantastic creatures seem real. It is easy to mock a director who goes to the lengths of actually inventing a new language for his fictional race, the Na'vi. But it works. Much like LORD OF THE RINGS, AVATAR works because it makes us believe in an alternate world, and through believing, we care about its future.

AVATAR is also tightly structured and directed so well that it maintains momentum throughout its runtime (which is not to say it couldn't have done with being a good forty minutes shorter). Cameron may be a master of CGI but he never forgets that story comes before technical wizardry. The movie plays a three-act drama. We are in a dystopian future where humans live on a dieing world, and have colonised a planet called Pandora, in order to mine a precious metal, whose main deposits lie underneath the "hometree" of the indigenous Na'vi people. In Act One, the audience invests its sympathy with the hero and heroine. A disabled jarhead pilots an avatar Na'vi body in order to infiltrate the tribe and negotiate a relocation by any means necessary. Problem is, he becomes fascinated by their respect for nature and falls for a Na'vi chick. In Act Two, the stakes are established. The army, impatient for profits, decimates the hometree, scattering the Na'vi people, and destroying their trust in the Jarhead. The science team establish that the whole ecosystem of the planet is connected and a powerful source of energy. In Act Three, we have the dramatic climax and resolution. The Na'vi regroup and with their human allies take on the colonials.

The strength of the AVATAR story is that James Cameron knows who to weave successful aspects of genre fiction into his more modern allegory of environmental degradation and ruthless military exploitation. We have a good old-fashioned romance between the jarhead and the Na'vi chick. We have a coming of age story, as the jarhead learns the rules of the new world. We have a buddy movie as the jarhead bonds with the science officer. And finally, we have a spiritual story of redemption. I love the fact that Cameron is willing to tackle both issues of science, politics and religion in the same film - to that end, it reminded me a lot of the better aspects of Ronald D Moore's BATTLESTAR GALACTICA.

Given all these positives, it isn't a surprise that I had a good time watching this flick, even though it did seem just too long to spend in a cinema for what should just be a bit of entertainment, albeit intelligent entertainment.

But there are negatives. AVATAR features some of the most hokey dialogue and two-dimensional characterisation seen on film since STAR WARS. And maybe that's no coincidence. Maybe when a writer-director is having to balance different genres, a large cast, action, technology and romance, it's just too much to ask to have good dialogue and nuanced characterisation too? But then again, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA did, by and large, pull that off. One of the strengths of that series was its ability to present conflicted characters who changed, evolved, and felt three-dimensional. By contrast, in AVATAR, you're either a righteous hippie earth-child or a cigar-chomping, profiteering rat-bastard. And characters say the stupidest things. Towit, jarhead to Na'vi chick: "why didn't you kill me?" Na'vi chick to jarhead: "Because you have a big heart." I mean, no-one, not enough imaginary aliens, speaks like this! There's also something slightly hypocritical in a movie that thinks nasty evil people who blow shit up are bad, but nevertheless wants us to be excited by a final act which is basically about people blowing shit up in more and more noisy ways.

Ultimately, AVATAR is such a feat of imagination that, like STAR WARS IV: A NEW HOPE, it survives the hammy dialogue and weak characterisation. It's nice to spend time in this world. It would've been even nicer to have been all done in two hours.

AVATAR is on global release.

Waterboys (ウォーターボーイズ, 2001)

Although my viewing habits of late have taken me into the territory of more artsy fare, I do occasionally indulge in a few guilty pleasures. For example, I love a good genre film now and then, no matter how predictable the plot. Waterboys (ウォーターボーイズ, Shinobu Yaguchi, 2001) falls into the category of heartfelt screwball comedy with an Esther Williams twist. I’ll bet, dear reader, that you didn’t even know that such a category exists! The premise: it is nearing the end of the school year for a group of young students at an all male school who have failed to be successful in any clubs for sports or hobbies. A young female teacher arrives on the scene with a passion for synchronized swimming and therein lies the screwball comedy: young men performing a sport which is usually done by women.

Through a sudden and unlikely series of events in which the teacher pukes one moment and the next moment is eight months pregnant and on pregnancy leave, the boys find themselves stuck with a plan to perform at the school summer festival but without anyone to train them. I could imagine a lot of cynical western viewers getting annoyed with the film at this point because of the unrealistic plot devices being thrown at them. However, I suspect that the average Japanese audience takes this as a cue to not take anything seriously and to just sit back and laugh at the gags. The plot really is besides the point. It only acts as a build up for the swimming spectacular (more a choreographed routine using a swimming pool than the actual sport of synchro) which is the centerpiece of the film.

Waterboys is successful because it never takes itself too seriously. The underlying plot device could be described as a kind of ‘if you don’t succeed, try, try again’ story, but the film only expects laughs and not tears from its audience. It’s not really about winning but about going through the process of improving oneself. And of course, although there are individual stories of triumph in the plot, as this is a Japanese film succeeding as a group is what is most important. Or, as Naoto Takenaka in the role of Sea World boss Isomura-san tells Suzuki-san (Satoshi Tsumabuki): getting out there, having fun, and making a fool of yourself is much better than feeling worthless for the rest of your life.

The film is also successful because it doesn’t overdo offensive stereotypes that sometimes creep into Japanese comedies. The jokes surrounding the transvestites who fund the boys in their efforts to learn synchro are relatively tame and the uncomfortable tension surrounding the one gay character Saotome (Takatoshi Kaneko) who has a crush on one of his teammates (Sato, played by Hiroshi Tamaki) is normalized rather than mocked. The big laughs in the film come from seeing geeky guys performing amusing routines – such as when Ohta (Akifumi Miura) gets discovered doing a workout video in tight red briefs. The director even managed to reign in the performance of Naoto Takenaka as Isomura the dolphin instructor. Takenaka is known for his over-the-top characters in films like Shall We Dance? (hilarious!) and Nodame Cantabile (a dreadful performance!). My favourite cameo of his was in Twentieth Century Boys where he gets killed off moments after making his appearance (I do have a black sense of humour).

Waterboys was so successful that there was a follow-up TV series on Fuji TV (2003-4) which ran for two seasons and a sequel Waterboys 2 (Yuji Sato, 2004). It’s a fun film for the young, yet perhaps surprisingly there may actually be some food for thought for the more academically inclined. For example, I believe there may be a great academic paper in there somewhere about male bodies subverting a typically female genre film. Being a big fan of 1930s genre films, I can say without hesitation that it’s a film that would indeed make Esther Williams and Busby Berkeley proud of their legacy. Available on DVD and Blu-ray with English subtitles.

Waterboys (English Subtitles) [Standard Edition]

Waterboys (English Subtitles) [Blu-ray]

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2009

Death By Hanging (絞死刑, 1968)

Nagisa Oshima’s 1968 film Death By Hanging (Koushike/絞死刑) belongs to a very small category of films that deal with the issue of state execution. In the States, it took the vision of Tim Robbins and the acting mettle of Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn to pull it off in Dead Man Walking (1995). While Dead Man Walking delves deep into the spiritual aspects of forgiveness and redemption and the ethicality of state execution, it steers clear from bluntly equating execution with murder.

For that, one can turn to Krzystof Kieslowski’s fifth Dekalog film A Short Film About Killing (1988), which won him the Jury Prize at Cannes. Kieslowski’s film lays bare the practice of capital punishment coldly and clinically with Jacek’s execution shown to be as ruthless and brutal and his murder of the cab driver. Like Kieslowski, in Death By Hanging Oshima uses techniques of distanciation to force the spectator to think critically about the morality and ethicality of the practice of execution. Although both films have universal appeal, they also nonetheless address issues very specific to the time and place in which they were made.

Death By Hanging begins in a documentary style, telling the audience that 71% of Japanese citizens support the death penalty, but then the title cards address this majority directly asking if those in support of the death penalty have ever witnessed an execution. The prison house where the executions take place is introduced documentary style with a voice-of-god narration (done by Oshima himself) that leads us through the ceremony up until the point at which the doctor announces that the death by hanging has been unsuccessful and the prisoner’s body seems to be refusing to die. From here, the film diverges sharply from documentary into a kind of parallel universe which Oshima uses to explore the complex issues surrounding capital punishment in Japan. The prisoner’s soul has departed, according to the Catholic priest attending the ceremony, but his body has not and the prison staff engage in elaborate proceedings in order to revive the consciousness of their prisoner so that they can re-hang him.


Like the proverbial onion, the film peels off the many layers of complex issues surrounding the hanging of the central character known as ‘R’ during the proceedings. And like Jacek in Kieslowski’s film, R comes from a disadvantaged background. Yet poverty, a disabled mother, and an alcoholic father are less of a hindrance to R than growing up as a second generation Korean in Japan. The prejudices of his jailors are revealed as they attempt to jog R’s memory about his childhood. In addition to the weight of past Japanese crimes against the Korean nation, the film dwells upon the differing views about death in different religions (Catholicism vs. Buddhist/Shinto), women as objects (or victims) of male desire, and the failings of bureaucracy.

One of the most fascinating elements of the film is the implication that the men in charge of administering or witnessing R’s death by hanging may have also been witnesses to or active participants in war crimes in Asia during the second world war. Death By Hanging should really be screened together with Oshima’s later film Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (Senjou no Merii Kurisumasu/戦場のメリークリスマス, 1983) which also addresses Japanese war crimes including the mistreatment of Koreans. It’s well-worth viewing for the performances of David Bowie, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Tom Conti, and Jack Thompson (loved him in Breaker Morant!) not to mention Beat Takeshi in his debut feature film role.

As in most of Oshima’s films, the story of Death By Hanging is inspired by the real crimes of an individual. Ri Chin’u was an ethnic Korean who confessed to the killing of two Japanese school girls in the late 1950s and even went on to write about out his crimes. Oshima took this glimpse into the psychological workings of a murderer and transformed it into a masterwork that explores issues of guilt and consciousness and questions not only the ethicality of state execution but also the veracity of human memory in acting as a witness.

With the appointment of Keiko Chiba to the position of justice minister earlier this year, capital punishment in Japan has become an issue again due to her abolitionist stance. Whether or not she will try to end the practice in the face of continuing popular support for the practice remains to be seen. It would be great to see someone from the current generation of filmmakers tackle the issue head-on as Oshima did in the 60s addressing today’s issues. Hajime Kadoi’s film Vacation (Kyuka, 2007) used the issue as a background to a drama, but as Chris MaGee noted in his TIFF’08 review, it did not politicize the issue of capital punishment. There is ample material for a brave young filmmaker to follow Oshima’s example and make a film that addresses today’s Japan and the issue of state execution.

It is also time for Criterion to tackle Oshima’s oeuvre just like they did with Ozu and Kurosawa. Or perhaps it is on the list of future plans for Yume Pictures in the UK who have been putting a lot of great films of the New Wave generation on DVD. In Japan, Death By Hanging is available on a 2008 boxset together with The Catch (飼育/Shiiku, 1961) and Tales of the Ninja (忍者武芸帳/ Ninja bugē-chō, 1967) but with no subtitles.

Bonus facts: writer Toshiro Ishido (石堂 淑朗, b. 1932, The Eel, Black Rain, The Catch, Night and Fog in Japan) stars as the Catholic priest and legendary writer/pink film director Masao Adachi (足立正生, b. 1939, read interview with Jasper Sharp) plays the chief guard.

Nagisa Ohshima DVD Box 1

MERRY CHRISTMAS, MR. LAWRENCE

Deadman Walking [Priced-down Reissue]

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2009

Preview - BEYOND THE POLE

Reviews are getting posted a little less promptly now that the locks are off the alcohol cupboard in Bishopsgate (quite literally) and the European fixed income divergence trade is starting to bear fruit. Which brings me to a preview of a movie that one might think a little at odds with the purported aim of this blog - a review site that loves shameless violence and scorns vegetarianism in all its manifestations. Not that I don't have time for the earnest agit-doc, but it always seems to me that they make not one iota of difference: after all, no unrepentant flat-earther is going to shell out his hard-earned cash to see some flick from the Lib-Lab coalition. To my mind, this genre of film is basically preaching to the already converted Guardian readership. This is where BEYOND THE POLE comes in - a new British film touting itself as the first environmental comedy. We sent our correspondent - a man more at home with ultra-violent Korean flicks - to investigate......

"Beyond the Pole sounds ghastly, promoted as a feelgood environmental comedy, which does it a disservice. It's not schmaltzy, doesn't preach, and has no over-the-top scene where everybody cheers. But it is very funny. Filmed documentary-style, Stephen Mangan (GREEN WING) and Rhys Thomas (THE FAST SHOW) work well as the glass-half-full and glass-half-empty buddies who are equally foolhardy. They set off from Lichfield to the North Pole hoping to set some sort of Guinness record. The film charts the obstacles they face, which include polar bears, frostbitten penises and, through their radio, relationship strife back home.

For the most part the film belies its shoestring budget and radio play origins. The Arctic is beautiful even when purpotedly shot on a camcorder. The cast is never hammy, and benefits from the comic timing of Rosie Cavaliero as the long-suffering girlfriend and Mark Benton as the local amateur radio enthusiast. In a stroke of luck for the filmmakers, it also boasts a pre-True Blood Alexander Skarsgård camping it up as a rival trekker.

Moviemaking on ice was never going to be easy. To some extent location filming in three weeks against-the-odds, on a Greenland ice field that was due to melt, has helped the performances. The dialogue comes across as improvised and the tension seems genuine. However, the script's ending needed more development prior to the shoot. We know it's inconceivable that such a pair of losers could make it to the North Pole and back unscathed. Eventually things have to go seriously wrong. This juncture is held off as long as possible to keep the humour flowing, but once the fun is over, the conclusion feels perfunctory. With more pathos, and maybe even a bit of schmaltz, Beyond the Pole would linger in your mind as a charming comic tragedy."

BEYOND THE POLE will be released in the UK in early 2010.

Art Animation DVD Wishlist for 2010

The news that Image Forum is releasing the complete works of experimental artist Takashi Ito (伊藤高志) on DVD (preorder here) later this month has had me very excited. It also got me thinking about other artists whose films I wish Image Forum or Geneon Universal would release on DVD for the edification of us all. Particularly neglected on DVD are early innovators of animation who chose not to make animation their career, but nonetheless made significant contributions during their brief foray into art animation. There are also a number of significant young artists who deserve to have their work on DVD. Here is my DVD wishlist-- do let me know if DVDs actually DO exist for these artists. Perhaps their work has been featured on compilations that I have not yet come across.


Ryohei Yanagihara (柳原良平, b 1931)

Yanagihara’s Suntory whisky CM animations are easy enough to find on streaming video sites, but it is not enough! I would love to see the 12 experimental films he did in the 1960s before he started working full-time doing graphic design for Mitsui O.S.K. Lines. It seems a shame that only one third of the Sannin no Kai Animators (Yoji Kuri) is available on DVD. Which brings me to the third artist in this trio of innovators:


Hiroshi Manabe (真鍋博, 1932-2000)

I’ve seen his graphic design work on the front covers of old paperbacks of Shin’ichi Hoshi, Tasutaka Tsusui, and Agatha Christie, but what I’d really like to see are the 7 experimental animations he screened at Sannin no kai back in the 1960s.


Renzo Kinoshita (木下連像, 1936-1997)

Ever since 2004, when Kinoshita’s wife and creative partner Sayoko Kinoshita completed their final film Ryukyu Okoku – Made in Okinawa, I have beenhoping that she might put out a DVD of his complete works of Studio Lotus. Not only are the Kinoshitas films stylistically innovative, they are also of important educational value. A DVD out next year would be perfect timing for the biannual Hiroshima Animation Festival and the 65th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. The Kinoshitas messages of a nuclear free world and world peace are just as important today as it was when they made Pica-don in 1978.

Sadao Tsukioka (月岡貞夫, 1939)

I’ve seen a number of his Minna no Uta animations, but what I’d really like to see is his 1965 film Cigarettes and Ashes (Tabako to hai). Wouldn’t it be great if someone did a compilation DVD, like Digital Meme did with early Japanese animation, of the artists who contributed to those early animation festivals at Sogetsu Hall? Speaking of early animation:


Kine Calligraph (Kiyoji Otsuji, Yasuhiro Ishimoto, Saiko Tsuji, 1955)

In an essay for the Holland Animation Film Festival 2002 Catalogue, Takashi Sawa of Image Forum said that this film is widely considered the first experimental film in Japan. This, of course, would depend upon your definition of ‘experimental’. I would place Kon Ichikawa’s puppet animation Musume Dojoji (1946) and all pre-WWII animation into the ‘experimental’ category. I am sure that many would argue that the first Japanese experimental film (in the tradition of Bunuel, Dali, Maya Deren et al.) would be Teinosuke Kinugasa’s Page of Madness (1926). But I digress. . . Kine Calligraph is clearly the precursor to the wave of experimental animation that was to follow. According to this website, which features a short tantalizing clip, the film was restored in 1986. Anyone know if it is kicking around in full somewhere? A documentary of the career of photographer Ofuji perchance?

WHAT ABOUT CURRENTLY WORKING ARTISTS WHO SHOULD BE ON DVD?

Fusako Yusaki (湯崎夫沙子)

Yusaki has been living and working in Italy for over 30 years now. She is renowned for her unique style of claymation, made famous in the Fernet Branca ads she did in the 70s. It really is a shame that her work is not more widely known because women animators of her generation are very rare -- she is particularly unique in that she made it big independently and outside of Japan.


Takashi Ishida (石田尚志, b. 1972)

Gestalt (Heya/Keitai, 1999) is on Thinking and Drawing and Aurora includes Film of the Sea (Umi no Eiga, 2007) on their Edition 2 DVD, but it is deeply dissatisfying that this important contemporary artist does not yet have a DVD of his own yet. Something like Tabaimo’s Ufer! documentaries, which feature interviews and footage of the installations and how they were made would really be ideal.


Nobuhiro Aihara (相原信洋, b. 1944)

Aihara’s collaborations with Keiichi Tanaami (田名網敬一) Scrap Diary/Animactions is out of print and it is a crying shame. Universal (now Geneon Universal) should re-release this DVD. And while they are at it, release the complete works of Aihara. His films are simply entrancing. To get an idea of how much painstaking detail work goes into his intricately hand-drawn films, check out the making of footage on the Tokyo Loop DVD.


Mika Seike (清家美佳, b. 1975)

I am a big fan of Seike’s work. While she may not have enough collected work for a DVD yet, she should at the very least set up a webpage for herself so that she can better promote her important work. Seike brings a strong feminist perspective to a medium still dominated by men in Japan.


Keita Kurosaka (黒坂圭太)

It is a mystery to me why Kurosaka’s films have not yet made their way onto DVD. According to Mistral Japan, they have at least 78min worth of his animation in their catalogue. The brief examples of his work that I saw on Winter Days (2005) and in Dir en grey’s disturbing music video ‘Agitated Screams of Maggots’ left me curious to see more.


Reiko Yokosuka (横須賀令子)

Yokosuka’s work recently featured at the Sapporo Short Fest. Check out their clips of her hauntingly beautiful charcoal animations to see why her works needs to be more widely available.


Atsushi Wada (和田淳)

Wada’s distinctive, allusive films are fascinating to watch, but like Seike’s work they require repeat viewings in order to understand them fully. The same could be said for:


Kei Ōyama (大山慶)

whose disturbing films are created using scanned images of human flesh and other surprising textures. The fact that he his following David Lynch on Twitter explains a lot. . .

Links to most of these artists homepages can be found in the sidebar. Here’s hoping that 2010 brings more delightful art animation.

Tokyo Loop

Animation

Thinking and Drawing

Animation

Renku Animation "Fuyu no Hi"

Animation