Isamu Hirabayashi’s 663114 (2011)

The artistic response to the devastation wrought by the Tohoku earthquake and the ensuing tsunami and nuclear fallout at Fukushima over the past year has been immense.  The Yamagata International Documentary festival was inundated with documentaries addressing a wide range of responses to the events of March 11, 2011.  Some artists, such as TOCHKAhave become directly involved in the effort to restore a sense of normalcy to the lives of the people of the region.

One of the most profound responses to the disaster is Isamu Hirabayashi’s Noburo Ofuji Award winning animated short 663114 (2011).  The environment and the problematic nature of the relationship of human being to the environment has been a recurring theme in Hirabayashi’s experimental films from the highly allusive piece A Story Constructed of 17 Pieces of Space and 1 Maggot (2007) to the overtly political Conversations with Nature (2005).

The title looks like a code, but it is actually a collection of significant numbers.  The Fukushima disaster occurred 66 years after the dropping of the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  3/11 marks the date of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, and 4 are the number of reactors that were damaged at Fukushima Daiichi.

On the surface, 663114, is a simple, straightforward animation, but upon closer examination one finds that it has as many layers as a tree has rings.  An ancient cicada crawls slowly up a vertical surface, which we learn through the first person narration is representative of a tree.  The tree’s surface is decorated with inkan (印鑑), the familiar red stamps that are used in lieu of signatures in Japan.  The cicada tells us that he is 66 years old, born the film implies, at the time of the atom bomb. 

In addition to being spoken aloud in a deep, guttural, masculine voice, the narration also appears in shaky, black handwritten English:

Once every 66 years,

I emerge from the ground, leave offspring and die.
Before mating,
I shed my hard shell at the risk of my life.
Our ancestors have continued this cycle countless times.
The soil of this country is very fit for us to live in.
It is free of strong pesticides and there are no landmines.
The water is delicious so the sap is delicious as well.
I will climb as high as I can.
Aiming higher and higher.
It is our natural instinct.
To survive and leave offspring.
Since the moment of shedding skin is life risking.
We choose a tree that is tall, sturdy and won’t shake that much.
Our ancestors have continued this cycle countless times.
Through the various hardships.

Though slow, the cicada’s pace is steady and its movements repetitive.  In contrast to the reassuring movements of the cicada and its narration, the music and groaning voices of the soundtrack create a growing sense of unease.  Soon, the cicada pauses and begins to moult.  Just when he is at his most vulnerable, moments after emerging from his skin, the earthquake strikes.  The vertical surfaces representing the tree are thrown off kilter, and many of the red inkan stamps go flying. 

The cicada, resilient creature that he is, has survived this initial onslaught by clinging to his shed skin.  He says that he needs to stretch his wings as soon as possible, but before he can do so the tsunami strikes.  Black waves resembling claws reach out towards the cicada and soon the screen is awash with black undulating waves.  The terror of the tsunami is expressed on the soundtrack in guttural growls and the haunting cries of voices that are suggestive of the thousands of innocent victims of this natural catastrophe.

The waves recede and the cicada, though injured, still clings on with one remaining leg to the damaged husk of his shed skin.  “I won’t die” the cicada declares, determined to survive and leave offspring as his ancestors did before him.  A buzzing sound announces the arrival of a black, inky cloud signifying the radiation from the manmade nuclear disaster. 

Black rain and deep-voiced throat singing accompany the closing credit sequence.  When the rain has passed and the credits are complete, the screen goes black and then reprises the opening credit sequence.  However this time the inkan stamps are muddled together and blurred, and the voice is no longer deep and masculine but distorted and echoing.  We hear the approach of the cicada before we see him this time, and when he appears on screen we see that he has been altered beyond all recognition by the nuclear disaster. 

I am a 66 year cicada.

Once every 66 years,
I emerge from the ground, leave offspring and die.
66 years ago, when I was born
I’ve heard that there was a big earthquake and a big tsunami.
There was also a big accident.
I will risk my life to shed this hard shell before mating.
Our ancestors have continued this cycle countless times.
The soil of this country is very fit for us to live in.
I love this country.

It is significant that Hirabayashi chose a cicada to represent the living creatures, human and otherwise, of Japan.  Insects hold a special place in the hearts of the Japanese, and the cicadas are one of the important signifiers of summer.  One cannot imagine a summer in Japan without the song of the cicadas and children delight in discovering and examining the skins of the cicadas when they moult.  It is a symbol of reincarnation, appearing metaphorically in many significant works of literature such as The Tale of Genji.  Cicadas are also a symbol of longevity as they are one of the longest living insects who spend much of their life cycle underground (normally 2-5 years). 

The film looks like a cutout film made of washi paper and ink, but Hirabayashi made it using images and textures that he found on the internet.  The inkan stamps on the surface of the tree are metaphorically significant in the film.  In Western culture, we do still use rubber stamps to make documents official, and this tradition gave rise to the English idiom “to rubber stamp” something, which is usually used to describe a bureaucrat approving something automatically without proper consideration.  In Japan, the stamp culture runs even deeper with individuals, artists, and corporations all using stamps as their signature.

When watching 663114 the first time, I was reminded of the common hanko (判子) stamp that one would use to sign for the post, or to sign into work, and I thought that each of the stamps stood for individuals affected by the disaster.  But then I realized many of the red stamps were more complex than the kind used by individuals so I contacted Hirabayashi to ask him about their significance.  Hirabayashi told me that the inkan are a metaphor for contracts [of the kind we would call “red tape” in English].  He went on to explain that after the war in Japan contracts have been given preference over the feelings of people.  In the aftermath of Fukushima, he feels that this bad attitude has risen to the surface.  

Therefore, the red stamps in 663114represent the negative force of bureaucracy, the rules that govern a society, in contrast to the enduring life force of the cicada, who struggles to survive at any cost.  It is a powerful film, and although it addresses a very specific Japanese historical moment, the universality of its message has not been lost on international festival audiences.  It received a warm reception at last year’s Viennale and it also got a special mention in the Generation Section at the Berlinale.  The jury in this division is made up of eleven children and seven teenagers.  They said of 663114:

Visuals and sound melded together flawlessly to create a philosophical and layered masterpiece. The director conveys his message, beyond all conventions. Through a simple metaphor he portrays the survival of a culture, even in the face of catastrophe. (source)

Hirabayashi used the platform to remind people around the world of the seriousness of the crisis in Fukushima: "Children are being exposed to dangerous radioactivity a year after the earthquake. It is our responsibility as Japanese adults to protect the children."

The soundtrack of the film is an artwork all of its own.  It was composed by Osaka-based sound producer Takashi Watanabe.  During the Viennale press conference for 663114, Watanabe explained that they approached the soundtrack as if it would be an offering to a temple.  He looked to Buddhism and Shintoism in his desire to create a new kind of sacred music.  Keitarō Iijima (Studio 301), the sound producer on 663114, explained that they used Japanese food for making the soundtrack including nattō (fermented soybeans), dried Japanese noodles and also cabbage.  He echoed Watanabe’s sentiments about the sacredness of the project for them, emphasizing that he tried to have a sense of respect for the food that they used throughout the production.

663114 will be screened at Nippon Connection in May.  Check out Hirabayashi’s website and youtubechannel to learn more about this fascinating filmmaker.

Director: Isamu Hirabayashi

Music: Takashi Watanabe

Throat: Hideo Kusumi

Voice: Midori Kurata

Sound Mix: Yusuke Toyoura

Sound Design: Keitao Iijima

Foley Assistant: Momoko

Art Director: Ken Murakami

Animation Assistant: Mina Yonezawa

This review is part of Nishikata Film Review’s ongoing series on Noburo Ofuji Award winners:

Film review by Catherine Munroe Hotes 2012

A Wonderful Medicine (ふしぎなくすり, 1965)

This 15-minute stop motion animation is an important landmark in Japanese animation history.  A Wonderful Medicine (ふしぎなくすり, 1965) is the first independent film by Tadanari Okamoto (岡本忠成, 1932-90) after he founded his own studio Echo Productions (Echo Kabushiki-gaisha) in 1964.  It is also the first stop motion / puppet animation to win the Noburo Ofuji Award, which for 1965 was jointly awarded to Okamoto and experimental animation pioneer Yōji Kuri.  Okamoto was to go on to win this prestigious award more times than any other animator.

A Wonderful Medicine is an adaptation of the short-short story Nusunda Shorui (盗んだ書類) by novelist Shinichi Hoshi (1926-1997), acclaimed for his “short-short” science fiction stories – many of which were illustrated by another Ofuji award-winning animator Makoto Wada and one of Kuri’s fellow Animation Sannin no Kai members Hiroshi Manabe.  Short-short stories belong to the genre flash fiction, and as such tend to be not only short but also boast fresh, innovative storylines and unexpected endings. 

The evil genius imagines the medicine giving him powers of defying gravity / the winding road leading up to the scientist's lab

In an opening reminiscent of To Catch a Thief (Alfred Hitchcock, 1955), an open top convertible winds its way up a coastal hill to a lookout point.  But instead of Cary Gant and Grace Kelly, the car holds a tall, skinny, evil genius with a Poirot moustache and his short, checked-cap-wearing lackey.  The two men are targeting a moustachioed elderly scientist who quirkily has a boy assistant and a talking crow. 

Posing as a potential customer, the evil genius spies on the scientist and overhears him making a new discovery.  Believing this new “wonderful medicine” to be something useful for his plans for world domination, the evil genius and his lackey plan a bold mission to steal the “wonderful medicine.”  Comical at every turn, they are almost foiled by the alarm systems and the talking crow, but in the end their cunning allows them make off with their prize.  In a hilarious twist at the end (spoiler alert), the lackey – who is coerced into being the guinea pig – takes some of the “wonderful medicine” which turns out to be a cure for turning a wicked heart into a good and wholesome heart.  Overcome by his new-found sense of morally upstanding principles, the lackey confesses his crime to the scientist, who is delighted to learn that his new medicine works as intended.

Examples of special effects

Compared to Okamoto’s graduate work Mirror (1960), one can see an improvement in the fluidity of character movement and general expressiveness of the characters – skills which Okamoto acquired during his period working under Tadahito Mochinaga at MOM Productions.  In an amusing touch, the scientist and the evil genius, whose mouths cannot be seen, both talk via their moustaches going up and down.  The establishing shots, both exterior and interior, set the scene beautifully.  The most innovative sequences occur when the crow tries desperately to prevent the thieves from taking the medicine.  Scribbles and even foam have been overlaid on top of the scene in order to depict the chaos of the fight in a dynamic fashion – I am guessing that as with Eastern European puppet films of this period (hugely influential on Okamoto throughout his career), and indeed as with Kihachirō Kawamoto’s early puppet films, this film was shot on the horizontal surface of an animation table with the camera looking down from above.  This would have allowed Okamoto to add depth and special effects on plates of glasses placed at different camera distances above the puppets.

Tadanari Okamoto Sakuhin Shu Vol.1

A Wonderful Medicine appears on the first DVD of the Collected Works of Tadanari Okamoto (JP only), which I reviewed for Midnight Eye.  This review belongs to my series on the Noburo Ofuji Award.

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2012

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (風の谷のナウシカ, 1984)

When I was a girl there were few heroines in animation with whom I could identify.  Snow White and Cinderella were too good and unattainably beautiful.  I was a bit of a tomboy, so I recall doing some Wonder Woman and She-Ra: Princess of Power role playing, but I found their sexy costumes a bit off putting.  It is such a shame that Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (風の谷のナウシカ, 1984) was not dubbed and released in North America in its original version, for I suspect my then ten-year-old self would have fallen in love with the gutsy young heroine Nausicaä.

My suspicions were confirmed when I watched the film on DVD with my two children.  Both Lukas and Anna loved the film, but my young daughter really warmed to Nausicaä.  Her heart melted in the scene where Nausicaä adopts her furry fox-squirrel companion Teto.  She cheered during the fight scenes and both children were excited by the dynamic animation of the scenes in which Nausicaä is flying her Mehve jet glider.  They had no great love for Kushana, the Princess of Tolmekia but warmed to the buffoonery of her aide-de-camp Kurotowa .

My children are also both nature-lovers and Nausicaä appealed to their interest in the environment.  The environmentalist message of Nausicaä is even more important today than it was in the 1980s, and is so well executed that it won the film the seal of approval of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).  Nausicaä is set in a future world in which is facing an environmental apocalypse.  Humanity clings to survival on a planet that is being taken over by the polluted “Sea of Corruption.”  The few communities (the Valley of the Wind, the Pejite, the Tolmekia, and the Dorok) that are left have begun to fight each other for the dwindling resources.  Nausicaä is one of the few who recognizes that in order for people to survive, they need to find a way to live in harmony with the other creatures of the world such as the Ohmu – giant crustaceans that resemble pillbugs – whereas others see violence and warfare as their only means of survival.

Flashback sequence animated in a different style.

This is not a film that one can just pop into a DVD player and leave kids to consume alone.  There is a lot of violence, including the murder of innocents / the defenceless both human and non-human, and challenging themes (senseless destruction of the environment, warfare, and so on).  I think the part that upset my children the most was the cruel torture of the Ohmu by the Pejites.  Although these are difficult topics, I found the film really invigorated my kids to talk about how the lessons of the film can be applied to their own everyday lives.  From discouraging their friends from harming insects and other small creatures to the day-to-day things we can do to better the natural world around us, Nausicaä inspired my children to stand up for what they believe in.

In addition to being a terrific story, Nausicaä is also a fine example of animation.  It won Miyazaki his second Noburo Ofuji Award for innovation at the Mainichi Film Concours.  Particularly notable are the exhilarating flying sequences with Nausicaä on the Mehve and the God Warrior sequence animated by Hideaki Anno (of Neon Genesis Evangelion fame).  My favourite sequence was the flashback / dream sequence of Nausicaä's youth (image above), which was animated in a completely different style than the rest of the film.

This review is part of Nishikata Film's series on the Noburo Ofuji Award.

Isamu Hirabayashi’s 663114 wins the Noburo Ofuji Award

At the Mainichi Film Concours earlier this month, Isamu Hirabayashi (平林勇, b. 1973, Shizuoka) was awarded the prestigious Noburo Ofuji Award, which celebrates innovation in animation, for his latest short film 663114(2011).  I was disappointed last year that no award was given out when there are so many innovative animators working deserving of recognition by their peers. Hirabayashi is a worthy winner and I am delighted that the Mainichi saw fit to honour him.

Hirabayashi is a graduate of Musashino Art University.  He initially worked as a graphic designer after graduation, but left his job to become an independent filmmaker.  His film Textism (2003) won the Grand Prix at the Image Forum Festival and his following short films have won prizes at festivals around the world.  A Story Constructed of 17 Pieces of Space and 1 Maggot 2007) made my list of Top 40 Animated Shorts of the Noughties.  His international profile was raised in 2010 when Shikasha was invited to the Cannes’ Director’s Fortnight and last September, along with Mirai Mizue’s Modern No. 2 (2011),   663114 was invited to the Biennale in Venice.

The 8-minute short was made in response to the devastating earthquake and tsunami which struck the Tohoku region on March 11, 2011.  The story is told by a cicada (セミ) which has been gestating for 66 years.  During the press conference at the Biennale (see video), Hirabayashi explained that he chose the cicada because they when they are nymphs (newly hatched) they must live for a long time underground (usually 2-5 years, but in some species even longer).  When the nymph metamorphosizes into a full-fledged cicada, it lives for only a week.  As we all know, the earthquake of March 11 triggered many more disasters including the tsunami and the nuclear meltdowns in Fukushima.  The cicadas of the region are now living in polluted earth, and Hirabayashi feels that they represent “the destiny of Japanese people.”

Hirabayashi, an interpreter, Watanabe, and Iijima at the 68th Biennale 

The music for the film was composed by Osaka-based sound producer Takashi Watanabe.  (渡辺崇, b. 1976, Hiroshima).  He explained that they approached the soundtrack as if it would be an offering at a temple.  He looked to Buddhism and Shintoism in his desire to create a new kind of sacred music.  Keitarō Iijima (Studio 301), the sound producer on 663114, explained that they used Japanese food for making the soundtrack including nattō(fermented soybeans), dried Japanese noodles and also cabbage.  He echoed Watanabe’s sentiments about the sacredness of the project for them, emphasizing that he tried to have a sense of respect for the food that they used throughout the production.

The title is made up of the age of the cicada ‘66’ and the date of the disaster ‘3/11’, but a member of the Biennale panel is confused by the number ‘4’ at the end of the title and asks Hirabayashi to explain the logic behind it.  It turns out that the choice of 66 was not random.  Hirabayashi points out that when the disaster struck on March 11^th, Japan had been rebuilding its society for 66 years after the devastation of World War II, and the number 4 refers to the four reactors that were damaged in Fukushima.

Hirabayashi was also asked to explain the meaning of the newly formed cicada that appears the black rain in 663114 as well as about the language of the cicada.  He replies that cicada that is born after the black rain, 66 years later, is polluted by radioactive rain.  Thus, the cicada is altered by the radioactivity.  The language of the cicada is artificial, but they intended for it to have a spiritual, prayer-like meaning. 

The most important message that Hirabayashi wanted to get across with the film is about the saving of children.  The children whose lives have been dramatically altered by Fukushima should be our first priority.  “This is our first prayer: to be able to save children.”

(source: BiennaleChannel)

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2012

Check out Hirabayashi’s work on his YoutubeChannel, his official website, or follow him on twitter.

Isamu Hirabayashi Filmography

Cockroach (2001, 2’)

Penis (2002, 3’)

Helmut (2003, 11’)

Textism (2003, 11’)

VS (2004, 11’)

Conversations with Nature (2005, 5’)

Doron (2006, 16’)

A Story Constructed of 17 Pieces of Space and 1 Maggot (2007, 14’)

BABIN (2008, 30’)

aramaki (2009, 26’)

Shikasha (2010, 10’)

5+ Camera (2011, 15’)

663114 (2011, 8’)

The Kawamoto + Okamoto Puppet Anime-Shows (1972-1980), Part I

Ever since reading about Tadanari Okamotoand Kihachiro Kawamoto’s joint Puppet Anime-Shows (川本+ 岡本パペットアニメーショウ) on Anipages, I have wanted to learn more about them.  Had the two Japanese masters of puppet animation met working on puppets for stop motion pioneer Tadahito Mochinaga’s MOM Productions – the studio that famously did the puppet animation for Rankin/Bass’s beloved children’s classics like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) – or had they met earlier?  How did the idea for the Puppet Anime-Shows develop?  What was screened at the events?

According to Kawamoto's account in Kihachiro Kawamoto: Animation and Puppet Master (Kadakawa Shoten, 1994), Kawamoto and Okamoto met for the first time at the farewell party Mochinaga hosted for Kawamoto when he departed for Prague to study under Jiri Trnka in 1962.  Okamoto’s enthusiasm for the future of puppet animation in Japan made quite an impression on Kawamoto and became the basis for their friendship.

Shortly after Kawamoto’s return to Japan, Okamoto quit MOM Productions and founded his own animation studio in 1964 which he named Echo Productions.  Okamoto’s first independent film A Wonderful Medicine (ふしぎなくすり, 1965) impressed Kawamoto with its fresh style and subject matter.  However, from the very beginning it was clear that the two men had very different approaches to puppet animation.  Okamoto was able to produce many more films than Kawamoto because he took advantage of the need for educational films for schools.  This meant that Okamoto had a steady source of income for producing animated puppet films and employed a studio system of animating.  He employed a team of talented artists including Sumiko Hosaka, Fumiko Magari, and Hirokazu Minegishi to assist with the construction of puppets and assisting with the animation.   

In contrast, Kawamoto worked as an independent artist in the 1970, making the dolls himself, making their costumes, constructing the sets, and doing the animation with very little money for staff to assist him.  Much of Kawamoto’s work was funded by making puppets for NHK’s children’s programming such as Okaasan to Issho (1966), Cinderella (1973), and Yan Yan Mū-kun(1973-75). 

In the early days of their independent work, Kawamoto and Okamoto began to spent a lot of their free time together, not only to talk about their work but also going on ski trips and other excursions together.  It was on one such outing that Okamoto, who had already hosted a solo show of his own work, suggested putting together a joint puppet animation show.

In hosting their Puppet Anime-Shows, Okamoto and Kawamoto faced two major obstacles: finding enough material to screen and funding the event.  Because puppet animation is a time consuming process, Kawamoto could only complete a new work every couple of years.  Even Okamoto, with his larger staff, could only produce two to four short films a year.  With only a handful of new works, they needed something to fill out the programme to make it a proper event.  Kawamoto came up with the idea of including live puppet theatre performances.   Not only would this lengthen the programme, but live shows could also incorporate the humorous aspects of puppet performances.    

Hosting these Puppet Anime-Shows in addition to their usual puppet animation production schedules was hard going for Kawamoto, Okamoto, and their staff.  The positive reaction of the audience to the screenings and performances outweighed any hardships that they experienced and made it all worthwhile for them.  Kawamoto has said that if it were not for Okamoto and the Puppet Anime-Shows his work would never have amounted to much.  The period during which they held the Puppet Anime-Shows was the time that Kawamoto felt that he truly became an artist.  Ten years after the curtain closed on the final Puppet-Anime Show, Kawamoto was able to pay a final tribute to his friend and puppet show collaborator by completing The Restaurant of Many Orders (注文の多い料理店, 1991), the film that Okamoto left unfinished when he died suddenly of liver cancer at the age of 62.   

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2011

What puppet films were screened at the Puppet Anime-Shows?  Read Part II to find out.

To learn more read: 

• Kihachiro Kawamoto: Animation and Puppet Master (Kadakawa Shoten, 1994)
• Tadanari Okamoto: The Heart of Animation (Benjamin Ettinger, Anipages, 2005)
• Kawamoto Kihachirō: Ningyō – kono inochi aru mono (Heibonsha, 2007)
• Midnight Eye Interview: Kihachiro Kawamoto (Jasper Sharp, Midnight Eye, 2004)

AVAILABLE ON DVD:

Tadanari Okamoto Sakuhin Shu Vol.1

Towards the Rainbow (虹に斑って, 1977)

The great puppet animator Tadahito Okamoto (岡本 忠成, 1932-90) was at his most prolific during the 1970s, sometimes creating two or even three short films per year.  The most beautiful of these is Towards the Rainbow (虹に斑って/Niji ni Mukatte, 1977): a story of love conquering all odds.  The 18 minute short is adapted from the folk tale Futari ga kaketa Hashi (ふたりがかけた橋) by Etsuo Okawa about two young lovers separated by a river. 

The story is narrated by screen legend Kyoko Kishida, who lent her voice to numerous puppet animations by both Okamoto and his friend and colleague Kihachiro Kawamoto.  The story is interwoven with the music of folk singer Kōhei Oikawa, who adapted the story Futari ga kaketa Hashi into song for the film.  Okamoto had used Oikawa once before for the music for Praise Be For Small Ills (南無一病息災, 1973).

Okamoto sets the scene with an ancient, creased map of two communities in the mountains that are separated by a fast flowing river.  The divided communities feud with each other with the young boys calling names and throwing rocks at each other across the deep gorge.  A young girl on one side of the river collects flowers which she offers the boys on the other side of the river as a gesture of goodwill, but she is cruelly struck down by stones.  A young boy tries to stop his older peers from continuing to throw stones at her and is struck down himself. 

From that moment on a friendship blossoms between the girl and boy.  One day, he brings her a present in a basket which he tries to send to her side of the river along a rope, but some boys tear the rope out of her hands and the basket washes away in the river.  In spite of all these obstacles, their love for each other only grows stronger.  When the boy grows into a young man, he braves the terrible current of the river with his raft to visit his love on her side of the river.  Their love seems impossible for both are bound by responsibilities to their own families and communities. 

The young man decides to build a bridge across the river and sets to work with supporters from his village.  However, the river is too strong and knocks the bridge down.  In her distress over the seeming impossibility of their romance, the woman falls into the river and the young man rescues her.  As she lies in shock in his arms, the couple sees a magical display of white cranes forming a bridge over the river and the woman experiences a vision in which she dances on a rainbow joining the two communities.  This vision inspires them with the idea of building a new kind of bridge that does not need a support beam.  The tale promotes the value of devotion, dedication, and perseverance.

Towards the Rainbow is a truly spectacular stop motion animation.  The puppets were handcrafted out of wood and cloth and the misty backgrounds and sets – which are similar to those used in Okamoto’s previous film The Strong Bridge (ちからばし, 1976)  – have been made with an eye to historical accuracy.  Okamoto is said to have done extensive research about how such bridges were designed and constructed in the period in which the film is set.  The attention to detail practised by Okamoto and his puppet and art designers can be seen in everything from the men having stubble on their faces after a long day of work to the use of a professional choreographer to assist with the young woman’s dance on the rainbow in the dream sequence.

In the opening sequence the young girl is shown picking flowers in a field of higanbana or red spider lilies – which fans of Japanese cinema will recognize from Yasujiro Ozu’s film Equinox Flower (彼岸花/Higanbana, 1958).  Higanbana – which also appear on the cover of the original storybook – usually bloom around the autumn equinox near countryside graveyards and are associated with the journey of the soul into the next world.  It is clear that the bridges being built in Towards the Rainbow, are not just literal but spiritual as well.  The film comes full circle, beginning and ending in autumn with the narrator declaring that the young heroine in her bridal garb is more beautiful than the autumn leaves.

ORDER NOW:

Tadanari Okamoto Sakuhin Shu Vol.2

Director

Tadanari Okamoto 岡本忠成

Original Story

Etsuo Okawa 大川悦生

Screenplay

Kunpei Nagakura 永倉薫平　

Yoko Higashikawa 東川洋子　

Tadanari Okamoto 岡本忠成

Animation

Seishiro Fujimori 藤森誠代　

Hirokazu Minegishi 峰岸裕和　

Hiroshi Taisenji  奏泉寺博　

Tokiko Ōmukai 大向とき子　

Yumiko Yoshida 横田由美子

Art Design

Takashi Komae 小前隆　

Masami Tokuyama 徳山正美　

Chizuko Makisaka 槇坂千鶴子　

Minoru Kujirai 鯨井実

Puppets

Junko Hosaka 保坂純子　

Yoshiko Kumahiko 阿彦よし子　

Sumie Ishii 石井寿美恵

Cinematography

Minoru Tamura 田村実

Editor

Naoko Aizawa 相沢尚子

Sound

Isamu Koufuji 甲藤勇

Narration

Kyoko Kishida  岸田今日子

Choreography

Saburō Satō 佐藤三郎

Music 

(composition/performance)

Kōhei Oikawa 及川恒平

Musicians

Paper Land  ペーパーランド　

Shuji Honda 本田修二　

Makoto Kouda幸田実　

Masayuki Nakatomi 中富雅之　

Kifu Mitsuhashi 三橋貴風 (shakuhachi)

Credits courtesy of Animations Wiki

Towards the Rainbow won Tadanari Okamoto his 5^th Noburo Ofuji Award at the 16^th Mainichi Film Concours.  This review is part of Nishikata Film Review’s  Noburo Ofuji Award Challenge.

text © Catherine Munroe Hotes 2011

URSA minor BLUE (銀河の魚, 1993)

Shigeru Tamura’s animated short URSA minor BLUE (銀河の魚/Ginga no Sakana, 1993) begins with a simple scene that could be right out of an Ernest Hemingway novel: a grandfather fishing with his grandson. The grandson, Yuri, is quite able with the hand-thrown harpoon and he soon catches an impressive fish for their supper.  As they return home with their catch, Teshikai Utollo’s otherworldly music hints that all in this world may not be the same as in ours. The grandfather sends Yuri to find tomatoes for dinner and we discover that they have an indoor rain forest complete with a lemur-like creature whose eyes shine like headlights. The tomatoes that Yuri picks seem to pulsate with a strange light.

While the grandfather comically burns their dinner, Yuri ascends to the observatory above their home. Looking through an unusual telescope he discovers that the constellation of Ursa Minor appears to be missing a star. The pair set off in their rowboat again to try to find out what is going on. They pass through a talking forest and a rocky area with mythical flying beasts. Along the way, a walking and talking building approaches them and voices his concern that stars seem to be missing from the Milky Way. They reassure him that they are going to investigate and return the Milky Way to its original state.

As they head out over what appears to be open sea, Tamura (たむら しげる, b. 1949) shifts to an overhead perspective and we then realize that Yuri and his grandfather do not live in our world but rather above it. The sea that they are rowing across is the atmosphere and they are able to look down at a world that resembles ours. As they journey out into the universe, they witness a giant fish unlike any they have ever seen.  They come to a place where giants who seem hewn from rock appear to be forging stars on giant anvils and are greeted by the wizard who lives there. They soon learn that a giant fish has been eating the stars and the wizard presents Yuri with a magic harpoon and sends him on a mission to try to catch the fish in order to return the Milky Way to its normal state. Hence the Japanese title Ginga no Sakana, or Fish of the Milky Way.

The grandfather also refers to the Milky Way by its colloquial name Ama no gawa (天の川), or River of the Heavens, which suggested to me that Tamura was influenced by mythology in his creation of his fabulous world. In East Asian mythology it is said that the Milky Way resembles a kind of silvery river and mythological stories developed around this impression. The most famous is that of the stars Vega and Altair, who were said to be lovers (named Orihime and Hikoboshi in Japanese) separated by the Milky Way who could only meet once a year on the seventh day of the seventh month – a day celebrated in many parts of Japan as Tanabata (七夕/the evening of the seventh). The mythology surrounding the Milky Way has inspired much great literature – most famously Kenji Miyazawa’s Night of the Milky Way Railroad, which Tamura references by having a train pass under Yuri and his grandfather as they row across the sky. 

(Learn more about Anime Adaptations of Kenji Miyazawa)

As the English title suggests, colour is an important element of Tamura’s work. The predominant colour in this film is blue, but there are also wonderful scenes of green and orange when they visit the wizard. This style of filling the screen with bold colours is characteristic of Tamura’s aesthetic. His manner of completely filling the screen with colour reminded me of two younger animators: Tomoyoshi Joko – who also made a wonderful little film involving anthropomorphic buildings called simply Buildings (2008) – and Oscar winner Kunio Katō.  .  .  although Katō uses a more muted palette to fill the screen than the cheerful colours of Shigeru Tamura.

URSA minor BLUE won the Noburo Ofuji Award in 1993 and is available on DVD. The DVD extras include a music section where Teshiaki Utollo explains the motivations behind his expressive soundtrack, an illustration gallery, storyboards, layouts, interviews about the production with Tamura, Utollo, and producer Mitsuo Shionaga, and trailers for Tamura’s other animated works a piece of PHANTASMAGORIA (1995) and Glassy Ocean (1998). The soundtrack for URSA minor BLUE can also be purchased separately.  Check out more of Tamura's illustrations on his official homepage.  

Ginga no Sakana - URSA minor BLUE (JP only)

URSA minor BLUE (soundtrack on CD)

This review is part of Nishikata Film Review’s  Noburo Ofuji Award Challenge.

text © Catherine Munroe Hotes 2011

Pictures at an Exhibition (展覧会の絵, 1966)

In 1967 Osamu Tezuka picked up his second Noburo Ofuji Award for his animation Pictures at an Exhibition (展覧会の絵, 1966). Among other domestic honours, this 39-minute film (33 minutes in its current cut) also picked up the award for Best Animated Film at the Asia Pacific Film Festival that year.

The film is a modern interpretation of Modest Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” (1874), a suite in ten movements composed for the piano. The music was inspired by an exhibition of the works of Mussorgsky’s late friend Viktor Hartmann. The first movement is the famous Promenade, which represents the visitor walking around the exhibition. This is followed by various movements that are meant to either create the picture in the mind’s eye or at the very least capture the mood of the picture. Each movement is interspersed with a reprise of the Promenade theme in order to depict the visitor moving on to the next picture.

Tezuka commissioned the composer Isao Tomita to arrange Mussorgsky’s composition for the orchestral accompaniment to the animation. The arrangement was performed by the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra. The Geneon DVD of the animation adds the original 1966 ending of the film as a 3 minute extra. It shows the orchestra performing the piece before segueing into the credits.

In the accompanying information, written by Masahiro Katayama, he describes Pictures at an Exhibition as the “antithesis of Mushi Pro’s TV animation.” Katayama feels that the film demonstrates the “journalistic eye of Tezuka throughout.” The film was, like Tezuka’s later film Legend of the Forest (1987), made as a kind of homage to Disney’s Fantasia (1940)

The film opens with the camera gracefully tracking up to the doors of a Western-style museum (post a comment if you recognize the building). Once inside, the film switches to animation as the camera pans along a wall of portraits in a nod to Mussorgsky’s original theme. However, the pictures are not those of Viktor Hartmann (which would be actually impossible as not all of them survived), but modern illustrations of people and character types that would have been easily recognizable to audiences in the late 1960s. Many of them: Shakespeare, William Tell, Sigmund Freud, the Beatles are still recognizable to us today. Some, like the Beatnik, are now a bit dated. Following the musical cues of the Promenade, the camera pans along at an irregular pace and pauses at various portraits. All 10 portraits are given an animated interpretation, followed by an extended “Allegorical Conclusion”.

In the English opening credits – which are replete with errors including the odd spelling of Tezuka’s name as Osam Tezka (unless this is an inside joke which explains his son’s unusual choice of Romanization of the family name) – explain that “This picture is constituted of the conventionalities of various heroes today.” My own interpretation of each “portrait” is that they are meant to be tongue-in-cheek satires of important figures in society. Here is a summary of each “portrait.”

Journalist

I actually think that the English title of this section is inaccurate. The old, spider-like, pipe-smoking negative stereotype that is depicted is really more of a media magnate / newspaper publisher along the lines of figures like Rupert Murdoch and William Randolph Hurst. There really are no positive attributions given to this dictatorial figure. He is shown as being corrupt, publicity seeking, self-serving, and power-hungry. All in all the portrait leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

Gardener of the artificial landscape

An insect is flying through a world of skyscrapers. He is exhausted from his long journey and searches out water and flowers in order to find some nourishment. Each flower he encounters turns out to be fake. The garden of fake flowers is tended to by a large man with an entourage of fans who dusts and perfumes the flower and cuts out any real ones and disposes of them. When the gardener finds the bug, he throws him away as well, but his fate is left ambiguous. Although the title card on the Geneon DVD suggested that this film was a kind of homage to Fantasia, the second portrait reminded me much more of the Fleischer Brothers’ Mr. Bug Goes to Town (Dave Fleischer, 1941). Not only does Tezuka’s bug resemble Hoppity the Grasshopper, the theme is also similar: nature (in the form of insects) being threatened by modernity (the city).

Order Mr. Bug Goes to Town (EN/JP) from Studio Ghibli

Cosmetic Surgeon

This is one of the more amusing portraits in Pictures at an Exhibition – and one which uses a more pared down sketch style animation on a watercolour background. In this scenario, Tezuka mocks the profession of cosmestic surgeon by showing a number of over-the-top techniques being performed on various people. One person is being expanded with air, another is put through a giant pencil sharpener, yet another is treated with a hammer in the backside. The most amusing moment comes in the form of a close up on the surgeon’s face when it is distorted by a sneeze.

Big Factory Proprietor

This portrait seemed heavily influenced by Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927). Tezuka wrote a manga called Metropolis loosely inspired by the film in 1949 – which was of course adapted into an anime by Rintaro in 2001. Like the portrait of the “Journalist” the factory boss is depicted as a dictatorial, greedy, soulless creature. Eventually the whole factory, including the big boss himself, are taken over by machines.

Beatnik

Although the portrait on the wall looks like a beatnik, the animation is of dancing chicks who seem to be recreating one of the Sharks vs. Jets dance numbers from West Side Story (Jerome Robbins/Robert Wise, 1961). This is easily my favourite sequence in the animation because it is so delightful. The use of chicks is a direct reference to the Mussorgsky score because this suite is known as “Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks.” The original watercolour by Harmann was amusingly surreal and can be seen here. 

Boxer

The boxer in this portrait is an elephant with a boxing glove on his trunk. The suggestion is that boxers, like circus animals, are being exploited by their managers for financial gain. It is a pessimistic portrayal in a similar vein to  the first and second portraits.

TV Talent

Like the “Cosmetic Surgeon” portrait, this portrait uses a sketching animation style. This time black on a coloured background. The TV Talent is an attractive woman cruising about in an expensive car while people at the TV studio panic because she is late for the shoot. The TV Talent carelessly runs over staff on her way into the building and the world of television is literally shown to be world in which people tear each other apart.

Zen Priest

This portrait suggests that Osamu Tezuka questioned the sincerity of practitioners of Zen Buddhism. A grumpy looking Zen priest sits immobile in this portrait. Neither earthquake, nor rain and storm, rocks falling from the sky, nor fire can move him. The screen fades to black, but then returns to the Zen priest, catching him yawning and stretching and he immediately goes back to his meditative pose as if he had never left it.

Soldiers

The use of cutouts and abstract shapes in this “picture” are quite cleverly done. It depicts a negative stereotype of soldiers and the brutality of war. The soldiers appeared to be American – in fact one looked African American – and in a combat situation. The film suggests that the soldiers have a lack of empathy for civilians and are only interested in their baser instincts. I know from having attended an exhibition in Tokyo in 2007 at the Showakan called Osamu Tezuka War Memories and Drawings that the war that Tezuka’s wartime experiences had a significant impact on both his outlook on life and his art. This vignette offers a very pessimistic view of the role of the soldier in times of war.  I have a feeling that the theme of this "picture" was strongly influenced by American military involvement in the Vietnam War, which was such a bone of contention at the time this animation was made.

Allegorical Conclusion

Order Now: Osamu Tezuka Jikken animation sakuhin shu (JP)

The conclusion of the film adapts the final movement “Great Gate of Kiev” quite literally. A procession of people, including many characters from the previous “pictures”, walk through a giant archway – which appeared more Greco-Roman than Russian to my eye but then I am no expert in architecture. I found the ending strangely unsatisfying, mainly because I didn't fully understand what Tezuka was trying to say with it. It seemed to suggest that the people were walking up to the “Pearly Gates” of heaven, but for what purpose I cannot say with any certainty.  There seemed to be a message about supporting others and togetherness, but it was a bit convoluted.

There are many who find Pictures at an Exhibition pessimistic and “weird” (see Hayao Miyazaki’s comments in Starting Point, p. 195), but I think it was Tezuka’s honest attempt to use animation in an original way. Most of the “pictures” are clearly meant to be read as satire – which is a rhetorical form renowned for rubbing people the wrong way. Although I found the “Allegorical Conclusion” a bit over the top in its use of allegory, it does however match the pomposity of Mussorgsky’s score. What Tezuka was trying to “say” with Pictures at an Exhibition is a matter of debate, but the quality of the animation is irrefutably high. It is an intriguing example of animation inspired by music.

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2011

This review is part of Nishikata Film Review’s  2011 Noburo Ofuji Award Challenge.