Keiichi Hara’s Top Animation Picks (2003)

The list that Keiichi Hara (原 恵一, 1959) submitted for the Laputa Top 150 World and Japanese Animation (2003) is fascinating as it reveals not only the animation that influenced him during his formative years, but it also his dissatisfaction with the state of animation in Japan in the early 2000s.

At the time of the poll, Hara’s talent as an animator had recently been recognized with the Mainichi Animation Award for Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: The Adult Empire Strikes Back (クレヨンしんちゃん 嵐を呼ぶ モーレツ！オトナ帝国の逆襲, 2001), the eighth installment in the Crayon Shin-chan film series. Although he would stay with the Crayon Shin-chan franchise for several more films, there were already signs in 2003 that he might consider taking his career in a new direction.

The animation professionals polled in 2003 were asked to list what they felt were the 20 best animated works of all time. Keiichi Hara elected to nominate only six titles: 3 feature films and 3 TV anime series from the 1970s.

 Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

(風の谷のナウシカ, Hayao Miyazaki, 1984)

Keiichi Hara considers Hayao Miyazaki’s adaptation of his own manga Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind the greatest animation every made in the history of world animation. During the recent Q+A with Hara in Frankfurt, he reaffirmed that he still admires Nausicaä.

Night on the Galactic Railroad

(銀河鉄道の夜, Gisaburo Sugii, 1985)

Hara also heaps praise on Gisaburo Sugii’s Night on the Galactic Railroad, which is an adaptation of a novel by Kenji Miyazawa. While chatting with Hara and Nippon Connection organizers earlier this month in Frankfurt, the subject of Miyazawa came up during a discussion about vegetarianism and Hara spoke of his admiration for Miyazawa’s writing. He mentioned particularly how much he enjoyed Miyazawa’s use of word play like onomatopoeia.

Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade

(人狼, Hiroyuki Okiura, 1999)

Most of the animation on Hara’s list comes from his childhood or the early part of his career in the animation industry. Jin-Roh is the only recent work that seemed to have impressed Hara, and he even writes that he wishes more animation would be like this film.

Ganba no Bōken

(ガンバの冒険, Osamu Dezaki, TV anime, 26 eps., 1976)

This anime impressed Keiichi Hara when he was a teenager because it was clearly so very different than other TV anime of the 1970s.

Space Battleship Yamato

(宇宙戦艦ヤマト, Leiji Matsumoto, TV anime, 26 eps., 1974-75)

This was a science fiction anime series that aired on TV in Japan when Hara was a teenager. He recalls that every week he eagerly anticipated the next episode. Although the project was conceived by producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki a year before animator and manga-ka Leiji Matsumoto came on board as a director, Matsumoto shaped the TV series to such an extent that he is generally credited with the unique look of the anime.

Future Boy Conan

(未来少年コナン, Hayao Miyazaki, TV anime, 26 eps., 1978)

Hara cites this TV anime as having a profound influence on his own work. The always sharp-eyed Benjamin Ettinger over at Anipages spotted the name of Shojuro Yamauchi (山内昇寿郎, name sometimes transliterated as Toshiro Yamauchi), a key animator on Future Boy Conan (and many other Miyazaki projects) in the credits for Hara’s Colorful (2010). Yamauchi passed away last year on the same day as Satoshi Kon. It is fortunate that Hara had the chance to work with someone whose work he admired.

It is noteworthy that Hara does not mention any foreign animation in his preferences. Yet despite his clear preference for anime, Hara writes in the comments section of the survey that he has been actually finding it difficult to watch animation. Somehow, he thinks that the characters and the voice acting make him feel sick and he wonders if too much anime is being produced, or if the talent levels of the animation staff has declined over the years, or if he is simply going crazy. He says that there is simply nothing worth watching anymore and he wonders if it would be better to reduce anime production by a third.

I would speculate that Hara’s comments on this survey reflect the animator’s weariness with producing “programme pictures.” He spent the better part of the 1980s working for the Doraemon and Esper Mami series, and at the time of this survey he had spent a decade making Crayon Shin-chan films. In the short amount of time I had to speak with Keiichi Hara in person, I had the impression of a very thoughtful man with wide-ranging interests from popular culture to literature and world cinema.   In his most recent films, he has taken on challenging subject matter and tried out new animation styles.  I think we have only just begun to see what great things this talented animation is really capable of creating. 

Summer Days with Coo [Blu-ray]

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2011

YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER

It has become fashionable for critics to patronise Woody Allen, a director who, apart from the odd freak hit such as VICKY, CHRISTINA, BARCELONA, hasn't produced a run of sustained hits since the late 1980s. He has been accused of cannibalising his back catalogue; producing dramas of diminishing quality; and for focusing his attention on an idea of the upper middle-class intellectual elite that is both anachronistic and irrelevant to modern life. Woody Allen has thus been condemned as a parody of himself. An old man who should do his reputation a favour and just retire. This view seems to be shared by the distributors. Outside of the Woody Allen-loving Parisians (and let's face it - they thought Jerry Lewis was a genius) most Woody Allen films receive a limited theatrical release or just go straight to video.

Still, for those of us who obsessively watched, loved and were provoked by his back catalogue, particularly the greats from the late 70s and 80s, a new Woody Allen film is hard to pass up. And when you get a movie based in your home town, starring actors of the calibre of Gemma Jones, Naomi Watts, Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins, Antonio Banderas and the criminally under-used Lucy Punch, expectations are higher than the critics would allow.

YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER is about the things that Woody Allen films are always about - the big questions of modern life. How far are we willing to delude ourselves into believing in love? How far are we willing to compromise our morals to achieve success? How crazy will we become to avoid admitting our mortality? If the first question was best explored in ANNIE HALL, and the second and third in CRIMES AND MISDEMEANOURS, what does YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER add?

Precious little. The mood is perhaps even more cynical and nihilistic. The location different. But the material is undoubtedly rehashed not to mention the use of characters such as brassy hookers (DECONSTRUCTING HARRY, MIGHT APHRODITE) and men who are willing to murder and steal to get ahead (CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS, MATCH POINT) let alone the idea of justice hanging on the throw of a dice or the fall of a coin (MATCH POINT). Humanity is portrayed as fickle, callow, self-serving and self-obsessed - life is a pathetic game of self-delusion - a desperate bid to outrun the inevitable. Woody Allen's characters may live in beautiful houses but they are rarely happy, and if they are, he mocks them for being idiots.

Having said all that, I still thoroughly enjoyed YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER for the simple pleasure of watching those familiar themes refracted through a new set of characters and a new set of actors. Because I didn't have to concentrate on surprises in the plot or thematic material - because I knew how the relationships would pan out from the start - I could simply luxuriate in the wonderful performances and three or four superb dramatic set-pieces that hold their own against any of Woody Allen's finer movies.

The first of those scenes is wonderful tragicomedy. Alfie (Anthony Hopkins) is an old man who doesn't want to admit that his life is nearing its end. He dumps his wife Helena (Gemma Jones) and bankrupts himself dating a money-grabbing hooker (Lucy Punch). Woody Allen skewers Alfie's vanity in a marvellous scene in which they sit in a sterile penthouse flat. She is draped on a fur coat she has just extorted for him, and he is waiting for his viagra to kick in, "Three more minutes..." Pathetic, beautifully observed, hilarious!

The second scene features Alfie's ex-wife Helena and their daughter Sally (Naomi Watts). Sally has married a failed author (Josh Brolin) and desperately needs her mother's money to start a new art gallery, but her mother has been wasting it on seeing a psychic who tells her she will meet a Tall Dark Stranger, and even worse, advises Helena not to give Sally money. The scene is wonderful because, as in life, you have two people who are related but who are in such different emotional and intellectual places that they simply cannot communicate. Helena comes across as smug, deluded and selfish in her manufactured happiness. Sally comes across as justifiably frustrated but also entitled and spoiled. It's beautifully acted and also tragic that this mother and daughter are unable to understand each other's needs.

The third scene features the wonderful Josh Brolin, schlubbed up as the failed writer Roy, so pissed off at his wife Sally's constant nagging for a baby that he has an affair with a pretty young woman (Freida Pinto) and so desperate for success that he steals an unpublished novel. There is a marvellous scene where he realises that he may well be busted and that look on his face - simply that - is worth the price of admission alone!

So, what can I say? YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER doesn't tell you anything you didn't know about Woody Allen's misanthropic world-view.  I don't need to see another brash hooker, and Freida Pinto certainly cannot hold her own among this cast-list. But, for all that, I enjoyed almost every minute, and certain scenes will stay with me as much as anything in Woody Allen's earlier work.

YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER played Cannes and Toronto 2010 and opened last year in Spain, the USA, Canada, France, Belgium, Israel, Greece, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Brazil, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, Estonia and Uruguay. It opened earlier this year in Mexico, Portugal, Romania, Argentina, Kazakhstan and Russia. It is currently on release in Poland and the UK.

ANUVAHOOD

ANUVAHOOD is a beautifully observed, wickedly funny satire on British "yoot" culture, as depicted in flicks like KIDULTHOOD. Writer-director and lead actor Adam Deacon takes us into the council estates of contemporary London, and gives us the unforgettable character of Kenneth - a nice boy from a nice family who thinks its cool to pretend to be a gangster-rapper from Baltimore. All talk and no action, the boy spends the first hour of the film talking in a nonsensical patois that's more Ali G than The Wire, hanging out with his mates, having zero luck with the ladies and getting picked on by the camp bully, Tyson. Just as you start crying out for something to actually happen, the movie lurches towards the semi-serious, with Kenneth selling drugs to save his family from the bailiffs. The movie doesn't really survive this abrupt tonal shift, although the skits shown during the credits help to restore the day-glo comic-style comedy of the first hour. 

The film is well put-together - very assured for a directorial debut, and I very much liked the cinematography from DP Felix Wiedemann. In particular, in the goofy early scenes, hardly any dialogue is shown in two-shoots - rather we flip back between PoV shots in a cartoon-ish manner.  Adam Deacon, Femi Oyeniran and Jazzie Zonzolo are incredibly funny as the useless teens, although I found Richie Campbell as Tyrone too broad. There are choice cameos from Paul Kaye; Levi "Reggae Reggae" Roots; the self-parodying Aisleyne of sometime Big Brother fame; and Linda Robson. But best of all, we get a very tongue-in-cheek turn from Richard Blackwood as "Laimbsury's" manager, Russell. I loved the irony of Russell telling "K" that his music career won't go anywhere, as well as later references to Ashley Walter's flick 4.3.2.1. 

Overall, ANUVAHOOD is definitely funny enough to justify a cinema ticket, and while I didn't buy in to the tonal shift in the third act, there's something cheering about the fact that British teen flicks are established enough that they warrant their own spoof. Not to mention the ultimate message that it's better to just be yourself than to aspire to be some dickhead pot dealer. 

ANUVAHOOD is on release in the UK.

LIMITLESS

LIMITLESS is a nicely executed sci-fi thriller but falls down on the screenwriters inability to fully explore the ramifications and consequences of its initial conceit. For all that, a perfectly decent DVD-night film. 

THE HANGOVER's Bradley Cooper stars as Eddie Mora, a hapless novelist with a loyal but alienated girlfriend (Abbie Cornish).  At wit's end, he takes a dodgy pill called "Limitless" from his ex brother-in-law and suddenly has absolute focus and boundless energy. He writes an amazing novel in one day, gets a sharp new suit, and - obviously - this being Hollywood, and greed always being manifested in stock trading - he becomes a day-trader.  His ability to make quick money gets him a job with legendary fund manager Carl Van Loon (Robert de Niro) and all goes well until the dodgy Russian that staked him in the stock market, Gennady, comes looking for money - and then, even worse, the diminishing stock of "Limitless".

The movie start off with real energy and style. Cooper is convincing both as the self-pitying schlub and as the slick trader. Abbie Cornish is sympathetic as the girlfriend and Robert de Niro - well, he barely has to act to look scarily impressive.  Behind the camera, I loved the way cinematographer Jo Willems (30 DAYS OF NIGHT, HARD CANDY) made subtle changes in lensing and film stock to show the difference between the ordinary world and the crisper, sharper world when on Limitless.  But the movie really falls down on Leslie Dixon's (MRS DOUBTFIRE, LOOK WHO'S TALKING) script.  I loved Carl Van Loon's big speech where he talks about having to earn rewards - but that isn't played out in the endgame for Eddie Mora.  Not at all. And one can't help wonder how a darker, more daring director like David Fincher would've treated the material during the black-out.  

LIMITLESS is on release in the US, Belarus, Bosnia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Russia, Canada, Turkey, the US, Philippines, the UK, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Brazil and Bulgaria. It opens in April in Greece, Kuwait, Poland, Armenia, Belgium, Hong Kong, Hungary, the Netherlands, Singapore, Finland, Spain, Taiwan, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Mexico, Portugal, India and Sweden. It opens on May 24th in Indonesia. It opens in June in Lithuania, Norway, Colombia, Estonia and Peru.

Random DVD Round-Up 4 - BURIED

Ryan Reynolds plays Paul Conroy - a man buried in a coffin - running out air, and running out of cellphone battery life. He frantically tries to call his employers, his wife, the emergency services - he is frustrated, put on hold, given the run around.  It's the perfect horror movie set-up. Claustrophobia - a truly hard deadline - and the frustration that comes of dealing with an invisible enemy and supposed helpers unwilling to realise what's at stake. The concept is brought to screen with absolute perfection: director Rodrigo Cortes and DP Eduardo Gau (A SINGLE MAN) create a sense of true horror by never letting us leave the coffin. We are trapped with Paul, only seeing by the light of his Zippo and only hearing the voices on the other end of the cell. I don't suffer from claustrophobia but I was squirming in my seat by the end of the flick. 

You can take BURIED as a high concept horror flick and leave it at that, but it's so much more. Arguably much of the best horror has a political or social agenda - all those Fifth Columnist body-snatchers, for example - and BURIED is firmly in that tradition. For Paul Conroy is a military contractor working in Iraq, paid by the US government. His captors are angry that he has come to their country and wrought war, but he comes off as naive and deluded - denying that he is a warmonger because he is not actually, technically a US soldier. As the movie develops, we see Paul disabused of that naivete, most brilliantly - not because his captors treat him badly but because his employer does! And, politics aside, who doesn't sympathise with being passed around a phone loop being forever put on hold by ignorant, underpaid, idiots at call centres? 

BURIED is, then, a perfect film. It satisfies both as horror and as political satire. The crew deserve mad props for pulling off the technical feat and for having the good sense never to show a flashback or the face at the other end of the line. Ryan Reynolds deserves props for making his character believable and go on a genuine narrative journey despite the fact that he can barely move. But most of all, praise to the screenwriter Chris Sparling for combining fear, wit and intelligence in equal parts. 

BURIED played Sundance and Toronto 2010 and went on global release last October. It opens in Hungary on April 21st.

Masahiro Katayama’s Animation Top 20 (2003)

Norio Hikone's amusing animated commercials for "Curls"

The late Masahiro Katayama was one of more than a hundred animation professionals who took part in the 2003 Laputa poll that resulted in the Laputa Top 150 Japanese and World Animation. When I heard the news about Katayama’s passing, I looked up his picks. He chose his top 20 in random order and had so much trouble narrowing his list down to just 20 that he added some honourable mentions in the comments section of the poll.

As a teacher of animation, it is not surprising that Katayama’s list should include not only many classics of world animation like the Hedgehog in the Fog, Crac!, and Begone Dull Care but also some lesser known (outside of Japan, that is) domestic animations like Tadanari Okamoto’s Are wa dare? and Sadao Tsukioka's animated interpretation of Seiji Tanaka's Kitakaze Kozo no Kantaro (Kantaro, the Monk of the North Wind) for the acclaimed NHK series Minna no Uta (click here to see Seiji Tanaka and a children's choir perform the song  in 2000 with excerpts from the animation).

The lists in the Laputa / Comic Box publication are challenging to translate because they are quite sparse. In order to conserve space they only give the film titles in the individual lists without dates or animator names. Often the titles are only rendered in an abbreviated form and I have to make an educated guess as to which animation is being referred to. For example, it seems likely that Meiji Seika has employed animation for its “Curls” commercials on more than one occasion, but I’m pretty sure the delightful ones by Norio Hikone in the late 1980s had the greatest cultural impact. ひょうたん was perhaps the most abbreviated title, but I felt sure that Katayama must be referring to the popular NHK puppet drama Hyokkori Hyōdan-jima (1964-1969) with its opening credit sequence by experimental animation pioneer Yoji Kuri. 

There was only one mystery on the list that I have not yet been able to solve. Just before the animated classic The Spider and the Tulip was the title RODE TO WESTSIDE in all caps. The title didn't ring a bell for me and I have tried looking up variant spellings (ie. Road to Westside or ロード・トゥ・ウエストサイド) but invariably all web searches lead only to the US musical West Side Story. If anyone knows what animation Katayama was referring to, do let me know.

UPDATE (25 March 2011:  After carefully scanning the list of 900+ titles that were nominated in the Laputa poll,  I have found that "Rode to Westside" is a commercial or series of  commercials directed by Makoto Wada but I haven't found any samples on the internet yet.)

It’s a wonderfully eclectic list of some of the most delightful and unconventional animation of the past century. Above all I think it demonstrates not only Masahiro Katayama’s eye for innovative craftsmanship, but also his appreciation for art that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

The Iron Giant

(アイアン・ジャイアント, Brad Bird, 1999)

Hedgehog in the Fog

(霧につつまれたハリネズミ, Yuri Norstein, 1975)

Jumping

(ジャンピング, Osamu Tezuka, 1984)

Begone Dull Care/Caprice en couleurs

(色彩幻想, Evelyn Lambart/Norman McLaren, 1949)

Hamateur Night

(ハマチュアナイト, Tex Avery, Merrie Melodies, 1939)

Dojoji Temple

(道成時, Kihachiro Kawamoto, 1976)

Who’s That?

(あれはだれ, Tadanari Okamoto, 1976)

Astro Boy

(鉄腕アトム, Osamu Tezuka, TV series, 1963-1966)

Betty Boop

(ベティ・ブープ, Max Fleischer, film series, 1932-1939)

Coffee Break

( コーヒーブレイク, Taku Furukawa, 1977)

Satsujin – Murder

(殺人 Murder, Makoto Wada, 1964)

The Hill Farm

(丘の農家, Mark Baker, 1988)

Uncle Torys Commercials (Suntory Whiskey)

(アンクルトリス CM, Ryohei Yanagihara, c. 1958-59)

Meiji Seika “Curls” Commercials (snack food)

(明治製菓カール CM, Norio Hikone, 1986-1990)

Rode to Westside (Shiseido, commercials)

(ロード・トゥ・ウエストサイドCM, Makoto Wada, ????)

The Spider and the Tulip

(くもとちゅうりっぷ, Kenzo Masaoka, 1943)

Rooty Toot Toot

(ルーティ・トゥート・トゥート, John Hubley, 1951)

The Sand Castle / Le château de sable

( 砂の城, Co Hoedeman, 1977)

Crac!

(クラック！, Frédéric Back, 1981)

My Neighbour Totoro

(となりのトトロ, Hayao Miyazaki, 1988)

Honourable Mentions

Ojarumaru

(おじゃる丸, Akitaro Daichi, NHK series, 1998-present)

Mermaid

(シレーヌ/人魚, Osamu Tezuka, 1968)

Kitakaze Kozō no Kantarō

北風小僧の寒太郎, Sadao Tsukioka, Minna no Uta Series, 1974)

Hyokkori Hyōdan-jima

(ひょっこりひょうたん島, NHK puppet drama, 1964-1969)

(opening animation by Yoji Kuri)

(puppet direction by Tadao Nagahama)

 Ugokie Kori no Tatehiki

(動絵狐狸達引, Ikuo Oishi, 1933)

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2011

Random DVD Round-Up 3 - DUE DATE

Todd Philips, writer-director of OLD SCHOOL, SCHOOL FOR SCOUNDRELS and the break-out hit THE HANGOVER, returns to our screens with what can only be described as a piss-poor; woefully under-written; shameless cash-in. The structure of the movie aims to rip off what was best in PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES. Robert Downey Junior plays an up-tight architect on his way home to see his wife deliver their first child. Zach Galifianakis plays the creepy fuck-up who manages to get the architect put on a no-fly list, sans wallet and cash, compelled to take a road-trip with the very man who messed up his travel-plans. What follows is a series of comedy set-ups that just don't work for two reasons. First, Downey Junior and Galifianakis have ZERO chemistry (and made me appreciate just how well Jude Law and Downey Junior worked together in SHERLOCK HOLMES by comparison). Second, Galifianakis is, like Danny McBride, the kind of comedy "talent" that works best in small doses. They always play creepy man-child characters - people who are meant to make us laugh with their social ineptitude. Five minutes to leaven an otherwise grown-up comedy is just fine to add a dash of zaniness. But these guys can't carry a feature - they topple it over. For further evidence, check out McBride in TROPIC THUNDER (perfect!) and FIST FOOT WAY (over-dose).  

Other than the lack of chemistry and over-use of the irritatingly weird Galifianakis, the political satire (anti-terrorist airport security, cross-border immigration) falls flat, and the joke about a dead man's ashes kept in a coffee canister just reminds us how good the Coen Brothers are, and how much subtler their treatment of the same comic material was in LEBOWSKI.  And, dear lord, what on earth are Jamie Foxx and Juliette Lewis doing in this flick?  And will their ever be a comedy cameo to match the sheer surprise of finding Tyson in THE HANGOVER or Bill Murray in ZOMBIELAND? 

DUE DATE went on global release in November 2010 and is now available to rent and own.

Random DVD Round-Up 2 - MAMMOTH

In New York a young professional couple outsource childcare to a Philippino nanny.  Sure, the surgeon-mother might get angsty that her daughter has more of an emotional relationship with the nanny than with her, but there's no real solution. Meanwhile, dad is off doing business in Thailand. We believe he really loves mum. Truly. And he's a good guy. But even he can't resist casual sex. And all the while, we cut to scenes of the Philippino nanny's kids, longing for mum to come home, and shamefully neglected by people who are too busy to care.

A decade ago, Swedish writer-director, Lukas Moodysson created a movie called LILYA 4-EVER about a young girl lured into child prostitution.  It was a movie that forced us to confront an appalling social wrong but also went beyond politics by making us empathise with Lilya in an unforgettable sustained POV shot of her being serially raped.  At the time I was shocked out of complacency and full of admiration for a movie that could make an "issues film" so visceral and unforgettable.  Unfortunately, Moodysson's latest feature, MAMMOTH, is less pure, less shocking, less affecting than LILYA 4-EVER:  with its intertwining pan-national storyline feels more like the pretentious, ponderous BABEL. 

MAMMOTH's unceasingly heavy-handed examination of the cross-national labour trade is superficial and alienating - and undermines what are actually naturalistic and believable performances from Gael García Bernal, Michelle Williams and Marife Necesito.  The tragic result is that, while I can intellectually buy into why I should be angered by the issues shown in the film, I was bored rather than engaged.

MAMMOTH played Berlin 2009 and opened that year in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands and Belgium. It opened last year in Russia, Spain, Germany, Hungary and the UK. It opened earlier this year in Poland. It is available to rent and own.

In Memory of Masahiro Katayama (片山 雅博, 1955-2011)

Last month the Japanese animation community was shocked by the passing of Professor Masahiro Katayama at the age of 56. Katayama was an animator, manga-ka, illustrator, administrator, mentor, and professor at Tama Art University. 

As a child, Katayama’s love for animation was formed by the work of Walt Disney and other popular American animation that he saw on television. When he later encountered the works of Osamu Tezuka, it was to have a deep impact on his creative career. From about the age of twenty, Katayama began working as a cartoonist and illustrator for newspapers. He was a member of Japan’s Cartoonist Association from 1978 to 1990. 

His activity in animation was quite varied from assisting on productions to organizing events and exhibitions. He directed a documentary film about the career of Osamu Tezuka called Film is Alive: A Filmography of Osamu Tezuka, 1962-1989 (1990) and has collaborated on a number of books about animators for Anido. 

Among Katayama’s greatest accomplishments was his supervision of the New Animation Animation DVD series for Geneon Universal. This invaluable series includes the works not only of key Japanese art animation figures such as Kihachiro Kawamoto, Tadanari Okamoto, Yoji Kuri, Osamu Tezuka and Koji Yamamura, but also some fine DVD collections of world animation figures including Yuri Norstein, Norman McLaren, Jiří Trnka, Frédéric Back, and Aleksandr Petrov. These DVDs and boxsets are all accompanied by informative essays about the animators written by Katayama himself.

Katayama had long been a leader in the animation community heading at one time or another such organizations as Group Ebisen, the Japan Animation Association, and Anido. He also worked with numerous film festivals over the years as either an organizer or a jury member. Festivals that he was closely associated over the years include the Japan Media Arts Festival, the Hiroshima International Animation Festival, the Hida International Animation Festival of Folktakes and Fables, the Tokyo International Anime Fair, and the Laputa International Animation Festival.

As I mentioned in my recent article on independent animation for Midnight Eye, as a professor at Tama Art University, Masahiro Katayama made a deep impact on his students. When I spoke with Akino Kondoh at the Shinsedai Festival in Toronto last year, she told me that Katayama had been the one to introduce her to the world of international art animation. Other top animators who have cited Katayama’s influence include  co-founder of CALF Mirai Mizue, and Kunio Kato who won the Annecy Cristal, the Hiroshima Prize and an Oscar for his animated short La maison en petits cubes (2008).

Masahiro Katayama had a close relationship with Kihachiro Kawamoto, who passed away last year. He collaborated with Kawamoto on a number of projects including illustrating the cover of his book Puppets for The Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Anido, 1984), doing the claymation for Kihachiro Kawamoto’s Self Portrait (1988), and assisting with the production of The Book of the Dead (2005) which was shot at Tama Art University. 

I first encountered Katayama's work as an artist on Winter Days (2003), the collaborative renku poem adaptation which he co-produced with Kawamoto. Katayama took a humorous approach to his animated contribution which is an adaptation of a section of the renku poem written by Kakei. He takes the metaphorical arrow of the original renku and renders it in a literal fashion, which of course leads to comedy. 

In Katayama’s vignette, a hidden marksman takes aim at a man being carried on a kago (palanquin/litter). The man’s aim is affected by some reflected light and his arrow shoots over the heads of an array of popular figures from folk legend (William Tell’s son with the apple on his head;  Japanese folktales) and the movies (Toshiro Mifune, John Wayne) before landing in the hat of the poet writting the verse. 

. 

Masahiro Katayama’s funeral was held on March 12th, on the day after the great Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. Photographs of the packed service can be viewed at Anido.

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2011

Related Posts:

Winter Days

Kihachiro Kawamoto’s Self Portrait

An Interview with Akino Kondoh

Kato Kunio’s La maison en petits cubes

Tadanari Okamoto Film Works Boxset

Random DVD Round-Up 1 - THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT

By the time I got round to watching THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT on iTunes, it had been well-reviewed by Ebert and The Guardian, and garnered a stack of award-season acclaim. And the film certainly had pedigree. Annette Bening and Julianne Moore are capable of both opening a movie AND portraying characters of emotional depth and nuance (see BEING JULIA and SAFE). Mark Ruffalo has impressed me ever since his turn as a bent cop in Jane Campion's IN THE CUT. And if we look at the younger members of the cast, Mia Wasikowska showed balls as well as ethereal beauty in Tim Burton's ALICE IN WONDERLAND, and Josh Hutcherson's performance in BRIDGE FROM TERABITHIA contributed to the emotional punch packed by the film. Most of all, I loved writer-director Lisa Cholodenko's spiky, emotionally skewering drama LAUREL CANYON, and was eager to see how she would bring that wry observational skill to the topic of a gay marriage brought under pressure by the appearance of the childrens' birth father. Put simply, I was ready to believe that the critical and commercial success of THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT was well deserved and looked forward to seeing it myself. 

Imagine then, my disappointment, to discover a drama filled with characters drawn in two-dimensions, behaving in ways that seemed at odds with their temperament. I neither understood their actions nor cared about the consequences. A drama that should have been nuanced and sophisticated thus seemed as trite and crass as romantic-comedies dealing with more conventional relationships. I can, then, only, conclude, that the praise heaped upon this film reflects our collective relief that one can now make a movie about a gay marriage and treat it as a matter of fact rather than as a cause. But, then, again, doesn't the heaping on of accolades suggest that we aren't quite there yet? 

At any rate, here's how the film works. Nic (Annette Bening) is married to Jules (Julianne Moore) and they have two kids, 18 year old Joni (Mia Wasikowska) and 15 year old Laser (Josh Hutcherson). The characters are drawn in broad strokes. Nic is the professionally successful control freak - Jules is the stay at home mum turned landscape gardener - a wannabe hippie with low self esteem. The kids are similarly broadly drawn - Joni is the swot and Laser is the jock. Basically, they are happy enough until the kids get in touch with their birth father, an immature but charming restaurateur called Paul (Mark Ruffalo). Nic is immediately suspicious of his destabilising influence, but Jules connects with his laissez-faire non-judgmental attitude. 

Some of what follows is deeply predictable. Joni starts acting out in teen rebellion, spurred on by her motorcycle driving dad. Laser actually wisens up when his cool dad points out that his cool friend is actually an arsehole. But the real shock - the real crass and incredible (as in I literally don't believe it) - is that Jules has an affair with Paul. What kind of loving mother would really give up her family for a drifter like Paul?  (Unlike many message-boarders I don't have a problem with the fact that she has an affair with a man rather than a woman - I can buy that she's maybe bisexual rather than a lesbian.) Just because she felt her wife wasn't giving her enough support at home? I mean, maybe I could buy it in a movie that took her emotional state before the affair more seriously, but in this sunshine rom-com, I just didn't get it at all. As a result, when Nic reacts with understandable rage and distress, Annette Bening's performance seems to be coming from a different place entirely. It's worthy and heartfelt but entirely out of keeping with the rest of the film. Worst still, it makes Julianne Moore's performance as Jules during the repentance scene look utterly shallow by comparison.

What I was left with was a film that was trying to be very right-on and deserved credit for trying to treat gay marriage like any other marriage - worthy of cinematic exploration.  But I was also left with a film full of characters that acted in ways that I didn't buy into because they weren't sufficiently well-drawn. Poor Annette Bening tried to take the  material to a more profound level, but was, frankly, running on her own. This isn't, then, a bad film, but it isn't a great one either. Too uneven in tone - too uneven in its performances - too unfair to its male lead character - too easy on its female lead character - and just too thin altogether.

THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT played Sundance, Berlin, London and Toronto 2010 and opened last year in the US, Iceland, Israel, Australia, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Argentina, France, Greece, Ireland, the UK, Brazil, Uruguay, Germany, Portugal, Austria, Chile and the Netherlands. It opened earlier this year in Belgium, Kazakhstan, Russia, Singapore, Poland, Spain and Hong Kong. It is currently on release in Estonia, Italy, Mexico and Turkey. It opens on April 7th in Hungary and on April 29th 2011. It is available to rent and own. THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT was nominated for BEst Film, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Screenplay at the 2011 Oscars. It won the Berlin Teddy for Best Feature Film. It won the Golden Globe for Best Film and Actress - Musical or Comedy.

Tokyo Anima 2011

Renewal by Shiho Hirayama

Tokyo Anima 2011’s site went live this week with some great previews of the work to be featured this year. On March 26th and 27th there will be three programs running featuring new short animated works from 30 artists. On March 26th in the evening there will be a symposium with Atsushi Wada, Osamu Sakai, Hoji Tsuchiya, and Mirai Mizue. If you are a filmmaker, check out TOCHKA's website to find out about a project they are putting together for the victims of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.

Here’s this year’s line-up. Click on the links to read more about the films / the animators:

R Program

The Mechanism of Spring (Atsushi Wada)

Between Showers (Hirotoshi Iwasaki )

around (Ryu Kato)

Gathering (Akiko Omi)

Water Closet (Sonoko Yamada)

This message is boiling hot (Masanori Okamoto)

The Tender March (Wataru Uekusa)

Mr. Sakurai at a ticket counter (Donghun Kim)

Getting Dressed (Aico Kitamura)

Scripta Volant (Ryo Orikasa)

G Program

TATAMP (Mirai Mizue)

Beluga (Shin Hashimoto)

Woman Who Stole Fingers (Saori Shiroki)

SANKAKU (Manami Wakai)

From the Dolphin (Ariyoshi Tatsuhiro)

PALM (Satoshi Murai)

Bring me Up (Miki Tanaka)

The Hand (Yusuke Horiguchi)

Uncapturable Ideas (Masayuki Okuda)

hito gata (Osamu Sakai)

B Program

Angel: The Place Where We Were (Naoyuki Tsuji)

Tochka Steps (Tochka)

alter (Toshikazu Tamura)

Sound of Life / Renewal (Shiho Hirayama)

UFO (Suwami Nogami)

Black Longskirt (Hoji Tsuchiya)

Floating Polyphony (Keita Onishi)

Confeito (Yusuke Sakamoto)

Googurl Googurl (Yoshiko Misumi)

Keiichi Hara in Frankfurt

This week’s screenings of the award-winning animation Summer Days With Coo (2007) at Mal Seh’n cinema in Frankfurt on Tuesday and at the Japan Foundation in Cologne were cancelled in order to observe a period of mourning for the victims of the earthquake and tsunami that have devastated the Tohoku region. I have been in a state of shock and sorrow at the events unfolding in Japan and I would recommend that readers of this blog support the relief effort in Tohoku by donating money to the Japan Earthquake Relief Fund. This fund is being administrated by the Japan Society with 100% of proceeds going to organizations that will directly help those in need.

In spite of having experienced the earthquake first-hand in Tokyo on Friday, Keiichi Hara (原 恵一, 1959) still managed to fly to Germany on Saturday and graciously gave fans in Frankfurt an opportunity to ask him questions about his career at the Mal Seh’n cinema. The program opened with a moment’s silence for the victims of the natural disaster. Hara was then interviewed via an interpreter by German animation expert Andreas Platthaus. The following is a summary of some of the key points that arose during their discussion.

Keiichi Hara, translater, Andreas Platthaus

Early career

Although Hara studied animation at Tokyo Designer Gakuin College, he initially found it difficult to get into the animation industry. He began his career working in PR eiga before being invited to join Shin-Ei Animation in 1982. Hara said that he was really lucky to have had a mentor who helped his career advance because not all animators are so lucky. In particular, Hara’s career was influenced by animation director Tsutomu Shibayama when he was doing storyboards for the Doraemon franchise.

Creative Influences

When he was starting out, Hara was a big fan of Hayao Miyazaki, particularly Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984). He was also a big fan of 1950s Japanese cinema. As Hara came of age in the late 1970s / early 1980s, Andreas Platthaus wondered if Hara had become introduced to 1950s movies through television. Hara replied that as a young man he had been a big fan of the films of Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, and George Lucas. He noticed that these American directors frequently cited the names of Japanese filmmakers in interviews so he decided to investigate the directors they mentioned. This was how he came to discover 1950s Japanese cinema, and Hara cited the films of Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998) and Keisuke Kinoshita (1912-1998) as having been particularly influential on him. Hara’s diverse filmic interests became apparent at the end of this event when he addressed the audience and asked what Germans thought about Werner Herzog’s film Fitzcarraldo (1982). The film seemed to hold a particular fascination for him and Hara knew many details about the film’s production.

Why did Hara stop making the Crayon Shin-chan films?

During the Crayon Shin-chan phase of his career his partner asked him if there wasn’t something more that he wanted to do creatively. Eventually he had to make a decision about whether to continue in the Crayon Shin-chan franchise or to stop altogether and take his career in a new direction. The idea of making a film about a kappa (a water sprite from Japanese folklore) was something he had carried around in his heart with him for a long time and he decided to follow his heart.

Summer Days with Coo (2007)

Most animated films are adaptations of popular manga in Japan, but Hara decided to look elsewhere for inspiration for his Kappa animation. While looking through children’s literature, Hara eventually discovered a Kappa story that appealed to him by the author Yuichi Watanabe. Although he used Watanabe’s tale for inspiration, Hara said that in general he does not like to stick too closely to the source material but to make the story his own. As a result, Hara’s adaptation was aimed at a much older audience than the original tale. Hara was particularly interested in exploring the ambiguities of the Kappa fable. Everyone in Japan knows what a Kappa is, some have claimed to have seen a Kappa, while others are much more skeptical as to its existence. Andreas Platthaus asked how the film had been received outside of Japan, where few would know the folktale. Hara replied that when the film was shown in France, it received a similar response as in Japan, and he had the impression that foreign audiences actually brought even more understanding to the film.

Andreas Platthaus mentioned that some of the subject matter in Summer Days with Coo would be avoided in Western animation for fear of shocking audiences and he wondered if Japanese animators had more freedom in this regard. Hara responded that he had purposefully wanted his film to be a bit harder – it was not intended for the amusement of children, rather he wanted to take on more serious subject matters. Hara himself grew up reading manga where death and other heavy themes played an important role and he didn’t want to hold anything back when making his films.

Colorful (2010)

Nippon Connection is planning to screen Hara’s latest film Colorful as their closing night film this year. and Platthaus asked Hara to explain a bit about the film. Hara said that the themes of Colorful were even more weighty than those of Summer Days with Coo. Some of these weighty themes include bullying, a middle school student falling into prostitution, and death and the afterlife. It is based on the novel by Eto Mori

“Program Pictures” vs. Independent Animation

Platthaus noted that it took three years for Hara to produce Summer Days with Coo and another three years for Colorful to be released and asked if Hara found these films more difficult to make than the Crayon Shin-chan films. With “program pictures” like the Crayon Shin-chan films, Hara explained that one knows ahead of time how many screens it will play on and what kind of an audience will watch the film so it makes it a lot easier to get the production under way. With independent animation, these things are not as certain and as such it is much more difficult to arrange for funding. When asked about his future projects, Hara said that he is in talks with his business partners about his next project but that it is at too early a stage for him to share with us what that project will be. It seems likely that it will be at least two years before we can expect to see another film from Hara.

Although I was disappointed not to see Summer Days with Coo this week, the film fortunately came out on DVD on the 15th of March here in Germany so I should have my hands on a copy soon and will review it posthaste.

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2011

Available from cdjapan:

Summer Days with Coo [Blu-ray]

Colorful (DVD)

Update:  

• see more photos from the event here 
• logboy recommends buying the Thai DVD of Summer Days with Coo with English subs.