Another Glimpse at the Yayoi Kusama documentary Princess of Polka Dots

Filmmakers Heather Lenz and Karen Jonson are sharing another glimpse at their documentary in progress Kusama: Princess of Polka Dotswhich examines the life and career of the extraordinary artist Yayoi Kusama.  Today they posted a new video on Youtube:

This 7-minute clip was put together for the Kusama retrospective at the Tate Modernin London (9 February – 5 June 2012).  I have been impatient to see this film since I first discovered their 2007 trailer:

However, it would seem that they are still trying to raise enough tax-deductible donations to cover the costs of archival image licensing and the cost of post-production.  You can support this promising documentary by donating money here.  If they can secure financing they hope to get the film out to festivals sometime this year.

I also learned this week through a posting on Brainpickingsthat Kusama has illustrated Alice in Wonderland.  A brilliant pairing of art and fiction which has gone directly onto my birthday wishlist for this year:

Kawamoto-Norstein @ Forum des Images, Day 3

Kawamoto-Norstein @ Forum des Images, Day 3

Sunday, March 25, 2012

On this day I rose early and went for a stroll around the Eiffel Tower and along the Seine with Sakadachi-kun (see tumblr). I then hopped on the Métro Line 6 and headed to the Cinémathèque Française at Bercy.  There was a long queue to get into the Tim Burton Exposition – the one that first appeared at the MOMA in 2009.  Even though they only allowed so many people in per hour, the exhibition was still overcrowded and hot.  I was surprised at the number of parents who had brought very young children to the exhibition.  I witnessed one young girl’s innocent childhood being blemished with nightmarish imagery as she stared as if transfixed at a figure of an infant with nails in it.  It was worth putting up with the crowds to see Johnny Depp’s Edward Scissorhands (1990) costume, as well as a long row of Jack Skellington heads from The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) in a lit display box.  Each head had a slightly different expression on it to give spectators an idea of the process of stop motion.

The regular museum of the Cinémathèque Française had free admission on this day.  It was smaller than I had expected, knowing what treasures are in the archives of the Cinémathèque Française, but there were indeed many delightful things on display.  Martin Scorcese has already donated some set pieces from Hugo (2011), but I was much more impressed to see the original magician’s coat from Georges Méliès’  A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans la lune, 1920) in full colour and with hand-embroidered shapes on it.    Some of my favourite things on display at the museum:  a self portrait of Asta Nelson  (here it is on flickr, but it not as vibrantly coloured or as textured in postcard form), Mrs. Bates' head donated by Alfred Hitchcockshortly after the release of Psycho(1960), Mae West’s serpent turban from Leo Macarey’s Belle of the Nineties (1934), original poster art from Julien Duvivier’s Pépé le Moko (1937), and Nikolai Cherkasov’s costume from Sergei Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible (1944-6).

For fans of animation, there are many wonderful things to discover in the Cinémathèque Française.  On the walls just before one goes upstairs there is original art from Hans Richter’s Rythmus 23 (1923) and Viking Eggeling’s Symphonie Diagonale(1924).  The Cinémathèque also hold the collection of the pinscreen animation pioneers Alexandre Alexeieff and his wife Claire Parker.  On the upper level of the museum there are two pinscreens on display.  A tableau from 1930 – presumably the one used for the groundbreaking film Night on Bald Mountain (Une nuit sur le mont chauve, 1933)  and a larger screen from 1943.  The large screen holds approximately 1,140,000 pins and was restored for the Cinémathèque by NFB pinscreen animator Jacques Drouin.  The smaller tableau had the image of Bébé Nicolas on it – a character invented by Alexeieff to amuse his daughter when she was young.

There was great excitement at the Forum des images on Day 3, for Raoul Servais (official website) had come from Belgium to see his old friend Yuri Norstein.  I was drinking coffee in the Forum’s café when he entered and witnessed the warm embrace between the two men.  Norstein was delighted to see Servais and introduced him to the audience at the screening of Norstein’s early works and collaborations.  It was wonderful seeing Roman Kachanov’s enchanting The Mitten (1967) on 35mm.  Many of the films in this programme did not have subtitles, but this did not bother me because I had seen the ones with dialogue before.  The highlights of this programme were Ivan Ivanov-Vano and Norstein’s The Battle of Kerzhenets (1971) The Seasons(1969) on 35mm in their full widescreen glory.  They were truly a wonder to behold.

In the evening, Ilan Nguyen  and Serge Éric Ségura did a long presentation on the career of Kihachirō Kawamoto.  This included many rare photographs and video clips of Kawamoto and projects that he worked on throughout his career.  Nguyen teaches animation at Tokyo University of the Arts and is a well known animation expert in France.  He very kindly gave me programmes from the Nouvelles Images du Japon festivals that he assisted in organizing at the Forum des images in past years which have included showcase of the works of Osamu Tezuka, Yōji Kuri, Isao Takahata, Hayao Miyazaki, Satoshi Kon, Kōji Yamamura, and many others.  The French premiere of Kawamoto’s Winter Days occurred at the 2003 festival.  According to his profileon the website of the French periodical éclipses (revue de cinéma), Ségura is working on two books: one about the career of Servais and one about Kawamoto. 

The presentation opened with a clip of Kawamoto singing a Russian song on Japanese TV – which thoroughly delighted Norstein.  The main thrust of the presentation was to demonstrate the way in which Kawamoto had to wear many different hats during his life in order to make a living.  It is very difficult for independent animators to make a living on animation alone. 

There were photographs from Kawamoto’s early childhood – many of which were not in the two Japanese books profiling his life such as those of his mother Fuku(1891-1940) and his father Kinzaburō.  Kawamoto was born and raised in Sendagaya – the neighbourhood in which he was to live for the rest of his life.  His family dealt in porcelain.  There was a photograph of Kawamoto’s paternal grandmother Suzu Kawamoto(1861-1937) who was a major influence on the path his life was to take: teaching him how to make dolls and taking him to the theatre with her.

In the chapter I wrote on Kawamoto for Directory of World Cinema: Japan 2 (ed. John Berra, 2012), I mention the fact that Kawamoto was a big fan of Hollywood and European film of  the 1930s – even making dolls of Greta Garbo and Danielle Darrieux.  Nguyen and Ségura presented a pastel that Kawamoto had made of Swedish film star Zarah Leander next to the original photograph that he had used for inspiration as well as dolls he made of Audrey Hepburn and Brigitte Bardot.

For me the highlights of the presentation were photographs I had never seen before such as Kawamoto on the  set of productions at Toho including Senkichi Taniguchi’s Escape at Dawn (1950) and Teinosuke Kinugasa’s Actress (1947).  We saw clips of a Horoniga (character with a beer stein for a head used in advertisements for Asahi Beer in the 1940s and 50s) animated short directed by either Tadasu Iizawa (1909-94) or Tadahito Mochinaga (1919-99), as well as the first few minutes of Mochinaga’s Little Black Sambo (1956) – which I would have loved to have seen in its entirety.

They also had on hand first editions of the Toppan storybooks, which Shiba Pro later published internationally – such as the Golden Press Living Storybooks series.  I have written about my copy of The Little Tin Soldier (1968) – click here.  There were also clips from other animation Kawamoto had done for the NHK such as the opening credit sequence of Okaasan Ishō and Boo Foo Woo (1960-7).  There was a series of Asahi Beer commercials with the slogan “Watashi no biru” (My beer) which were hilarious send-ups of westerns – Kawamoto had apparently been a huge fan of westerns as a teen, particularly John Ford’s Stagecoach (1939). 

There was one bit of information that took me totally by surprise: I leaned that Kawamoto had elaborate tattoos on his back and upper arms.  Today in the west it has become quite commonplace for people to have tattoos, but in Japan such tattoos are associated with the yakuza.  Many sentō (public bath) have signs declaring that people with tattoos are not welcome to bathe there.  Kawamoto had his tattoos done between 1956 and 1963 apparently as a kind of act of rebellion; a way of marking himself as an individual.  Ségura and Nguyen even showed us a photograph of Kawamoto’s tattoos taken from the rear with him only wearing a fundoshi (traditional male underwear).  This was followed by a series of photographs from Kawamoto’s trip to Eastern Europe.  I looked at the famous photograph of Kawamoto with Jiří Trnka (1912-69) with new eyes.  Kawamoto looks very conservative in his suit: a small, unassuming man in contrast to the hulking form of Trnka.  To think that under that smart suit, Kawamoto was hiding an elaborate work of tattoo art!

One of the questions that had been niggling at me for some time was the mystery of Kawamoto’s first feature film: Rennyo and his Mother (1981).  This 93 min. puppet animation never plays at retrospectives of Kawamoto’s career and has never been made available on video or DVD.  They showed a clip from the film and it looks absolutely stunning.   After the presentation, I asked Nguyen about the availability of the film and he said that it also screens rarely in Japan as the rights are held by the religious organization who commissioned it.  The scenario for the film was written by Kaneto Shindō (Kuroneko, Onibaba) and it features voice acting by Kyōko Kishida and Tetsuko Kuroyanagi.  Although it was not a personal project of Kawamoto's, rather a commissioned work to order, I still feel the work is significant and would love to see it some day.

During the overview of the latter half of Kawamoto’s career there were photographs of him at festivals and other events around the world.  Notable photographs included one of him with Yuri Norstein at 1985 animation festival in Varna – which is the occasion on which the two of them became friends, with Jim Henson in 1986, with Břetislav Pojar at Annecy in 1987, in Shangai in 1987 signing the contact to make To Shoot Without Shooting (1988), and with Karel Zeman and Nicole Saloman at Hiroshima in 1987.  The presentation concluded with footage from the Kawamoto memorial service in 2010 which featured a very moving march of the large puppets from his NHK special series Romance of the Three Kingdoms. 

The presentation was followed by Takashi Namiki’s documentary Living With Puppets: The World of Kihachirō Kawamoto(1999) – read my review here.  The weekend concluded with a screening of Kawamoto shorts including a rare screening of Tadahito Mochinaga’s Little Black Sambo and the Twins(1957), for which Kawamoto had crafted puppets.  Read about this film here.  I slipped out of the final screening event after this film, for I had seen all the other films many times before.

 

with the illustrious Alexis Hunot

I had a chance on the final day of the Kawamoto-Norstein event to get to know animation expert Alexis Hunot a bit better.  I am a longtime fan of his blog Zewebanim and was pleased to find that he is also a fan of this blog.  It turns out that the review that I wrote about Takashi Namiki’s book Animated People in Photo, struck a personal chord with Alexis because his uncle Jean-Luc Xiberras (April 1, 1941- December 26, 1998) is featured in the book.  My blog post apparently triggered Alexis to track down a copy of the photograph for his mother.  Xiberras was the director of Annecy from 1982 until his passing in December 1998.  It was under Xiberras’ direction that Annecy moved from being a biennale to an annual event in 1998.  There is an interview with Xiberras from 1997 on AWN as well as a touching homage to him from 1999 in Englishand Frenchwith tributes written by Frédéric Back, Bruno Edera, and many others. 

Alexis Hunot did his studies in cinema, but his love of animation began when he discovered the works of Back, Norstein, and Jan Švankmajer at Annecy 1987 where he worked as an assistant.  He teaches at Gobelins  and has a monthly radio programme with Florentine Grelier about animation with called Bulles de rêves.   You can see a video of him giving a lecture here, and here is the interview he did with Yuri Norstein.

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2012

PREVIOUSLY: Kawamoto-Norstein @Forum des Images, Day 2 (Part II)

FIRST ENTRY IN THIS SERIES: Kawamoto-Norstein @ Forum des Images, Day 1

The World of Kato Kunio

Hachioji Yume Art Museum Special Exhibition: The World of Kato Kunio

八王子市夢美術館特別展　加藤久仁生展

Hachioji Yume Art Museum

10 February – 25 March 2012

On Friday, the Hachioji Yume Art Museum launched its special exhibition celebrating the career so far of Oscar-winning animator Kunio Katō (加藤久仁生, b. 1977).  Since winning the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film for La maison en petits cubes(つみきのいえ/Tsumiki no ie, 2008), Katō has keep a relatively low profile internationally.  He has; however, indeed kept busy creating an animation campaign in celebration of the 40^th anniversary of Sekisui Heim (セキスイハイム) among other projects for his company ROBOT.  There have recently been rumours that Katō may be involved in the production of the animated adaptation of Khalil Gibran’s poetry collection The Prophet (Roger Allers, Sylvain Chomet, et al., 2013).

still from Sekisui Heim animated CM

A graduate of Tama Art University, where Katō was introduced to animation by the influential animator Masahiro Katayama, Katō quickly became the darling of Japan’s indie animation scene with his short films The Apple Incident (2001), Fantasy(2003) and his web series The Diary of Tortov Roddle (2004).  Before winning the Oscar, he had already been the recipient of many laurels including twice winning the Yuri Norstein Prize at Laputa as well as top awards at international festivals including the Japan Media Arts Festival, Hiroshima, and Annecy.

The exhibition, which was put together in collaboration with the designer Makoto Koizumi (小泉誠), features sketches, storyboards, and original illustrations from the production of La maison en petits cubes.  One can follow the production process step-by-step and learn about how this exceptional animated short came to life.  In addition, the exhibition features work Kato has done since winning the Oscar – sketches from Atogaki (あとがき/Postscript) a regular feature by Kato published in the animation magazine MOE.

 The highlight of the exhibition is Katō’s latest animated short  Jōkei(情景, 2012) which he made especially for this event.  In addition, Kenji Kondo, the composer of the La maison en petits cubes soundtrack, and the Kuricorder Quartet (栗コーダーカルテット) will perform music from the film at nearby Ichō Hall on February 16^th. 

For more information and a slideshow of images from the event, go to Yumebi.com(JP only).

Hachioji Yume Art Museum                                                                                                                   

2F View Tower Hachiouji

 8-1 Youkamachi, Hachioujishi

Tokyo 192-0071

Tel.  0426-21-6777 Fax 0426-21-6776

10:00-19:00

For directions to the event see Tokyo Art Beat (EN/JP)

Order Tsumiki no Ie (La Maison en Petits Cubes)

Japan in Germany 4: Japan Media Arts Festival Dortmund

The Japan Media Arts Festival has been held annually in Tokyo since 1997.  Sponsored by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the festival aims to promote the development of innovative media arts.  They accept entries from all over the world and award prizes in four creative divisions: Art, Animation, Entertainment, and Manga.  Last year they had a total of 2,645 works entered into the competition including 694 from overseas.  Check out their website for their current call for entries.  

Dortmund U is hosting a selection of the best of the Japan Media Arts Festival this fall from September 9th until October 2nd, 2011.  The event has been curated by Stefan Riekeles (Les Jardins des Pilotes, Berlin).  The Exhibition itself will be open daily except for Mondays:

Tuesday - Wednesday 10:00 -18:00

Thursday - Friday 10:00 - 20:00

Saturday - Sunday 11:00-18:00

Featured Artists will include:

Art

HIRAKAWA Norimichi / QUE Houxo, KUROKAWA Ryoichi, KUWAKUBO Ryota, MIYAMOTO Naotaka, ONISHI Yasuaki, SHINTSUBO Kenshu, SHINTSUBO Kenshu / IKEGAMI Takashi, UKAWA Naohiro

Entertainment

FUJIKI Jun / SUZUTA Ken / SUZUKI Tatsuya, HAYASHI Tomohiko / SENBO Kensuke / KOYAMA Tomohiko, MASE Jitsuro / NAGAE Tom, MIYAWAKI Osamu, MIZUGUCHI Tetsuya, NAKAMURA Haruki, UCHIDA Shinya

Manga

AZUMA Kiyohiko, INOUE Takehiko, IWAAKI Hitoshi, YAMADA Yoshihiro, YAMAMOTO Naoki, YOSHINAGA Fumi, Nichimandoku

Animation

ANNO Hideaki, HARA Keiichi, HOSODA Mamoru, ISO Mitsuo, KOIKE Takeshi, MIYAZAKI Hayao, OSHII Mamoru, SHINKAI Makoto, TANIGAWA Nagaru / ISHIHARA Tatsuya, YUASA Masaaki

Concert

sasakure.UK feat. Hatsune Miku, Momoiro Clover Z 

For me, the highlight is of course the animation on offer.  I am planning on going up to Dortmund on the first Sunday of the event to see the Film Talk with Masaaki Yuasa.  He won the Grand Prize in 2010 for The Tatami Galaxy.  He also won the Grand Prize in 2004 for Mind Game and an Excellence Prize in 2008 for Kaiba.  All of these films/TV series will be screening at the Dortmund U event.  I also highly recommend the selection of short films on offer:

JMAF Short Film Special 

Sept. 9 (at the opening event), 24 and Oct. 2nd

ISHIDA Hiroyasu: Fumiko's Confession

ITO Naoki / Frank HAHN: Nike Music Shoe

MASHIMA Riichiro: Ski Jumping Pairs

MIZUGUCHI Tetsuya / TAMAI Kenji: make.believe / Genki Rockets

NAKAMURA Magico u.a.: Hibi No Neiro (Tone of everyday)

OKAMOTO Noriaki: Algol

OKAWARA Ryo: Animal Dance

SAKAMOTO Yusuke: the river

SEKI Kazuaki: arukuaround / sakanaction

TAKAHASHI Nobuo: Musashino Plateau

TAKEUCHI Taijin: a song like a fish

YAMAMURA Koji: A Child's Metaphysics

YKBX: natsu wo matteimashita / amazarashi

Here is the Full Film Program:

Saturday, September 10th

20:00 Redline (Takeshi Koike, 2009)

Sunday, September 11th

16:00 Kaiba (Masaaki Yuasa, 2008, TV series)
18:00 Film talk with special guest: Masaaki Yuasa
20:00 Mind Game (Masaaki Yuasa, 2004)

Thursday, September 15th

20:00 Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone (Hideaki Anno/Masayuki/Kazuya Tsurumaki, 2007)

Friday, September 16th

20:00 Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance (Hideaki Anno/Masayuki/Kazuya Tsurumaki, 2009)

Saturday, September 17th

16:00 Summer Wars (Mamoru Hosoda, 2009)
18:00 The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (Mamoru Hosoda, 2006)
20:00 The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya (Tatsuya Ishihara/Yasuhiro Takemoto, 2010)

Sunday, September 18th

16:00 Ponyo (Hayao Miyazaki, 2008)
18:00-23:00 The Tatami Galaxy (Masaaki Yuasa, 2010, TV series)

Thursday, September 22nd

20:00 Ghost in the Shell (Mamoru Oshii, 1995)

Saturday, September 24th

16:00 JMAF Short Film Special | 13 Films, 60 min.total
17:00 Den-noh Coil  / CyberCoil (aka  Dennō Koiru, Mitsuo Iso, 2007, TV series)
18:00 Summer Wars (Mamoru Hosoda, 2009)
20:00 The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (Mamoru Hosoda, 2006)

Sunday, September 25h

16:00 Crayon Shinchan: The Storm Called: The Battle of the Warring States (Keiichi Hara, 2002)
18:00 Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone  (Hideaki Anno/Masayuki/Kazuya Tsurumaki, 2007)
20:00 Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (Mamoru Oshii, 2004)

Thursday, September 29th

20:00 Buttgereit's Monster Film Selection (TBA)

Friday, September 30th

19:00 Talk with Director Jörg Buttgereit
20:00 Buttgereit's Monster Film Selection (TBA)

Sunday, October 10th
.
16:00 Ponyo (Hayao Miyazaki, 2008)
18:00 JMAF Short Film Special | 13 Films, 60 min.total
20:00 Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance (Hideaki Anno,  2009)


This blog post is part the Japan in Germany series.

Taku Furukawa “A Playful Heart” Exhibition: “From a Single Line”

A retrospective of the career of Japanese alternative animation pioneer Taku Furukawa has opened this week at the Kichijoji Art Museum in Musashino. Furukawa (古川タク, b. 1941) has worked as an animator, illustrator, teacher and mentor for over 40 years.  He has won many prestigious awards in his career including the Special Grand Jury Prize at Annecy (1975), the Bungeishunju Manga Award (1978) for his book The Takun Humor, and the Noburo Ofuji Award (1980). 

The exhibition is called Taku Furukawa “A Playful Heart” Exhibition: “From a Single Line” (古川タク展「あそびココロ」“1本の線から”). “From a Single Line” refers to his minimalistic line drawing aesthetic. Furukawa has cited the influence of renowned New Yorker illustrator Saul Steinberg (1914-1999) on his trademark style. Furukawa was also influenced early in his career by his mentor Yōji Kuri (久里洋二, b. 1928). Furukawa worked his way up at Kuri’s studio in the 1960s, eventually doing key animation on many important films such as AOS (1964) and Au Fou! (1965). In 1966, he ventured out as a freelance animator, eventually forming his own studio, Takun Box, in 1970.

The “Playful Heart” in the title of the exhibition refers not only to Furukawa’s tongue-in-cheek sense of humour in his art, but also to playful spirit with which he approaches animation. Handmade films like Nice to See You (1974) follow in the experimental traditions of animators like Norman McLaren, Len Lye, and Oskar Fischinger. In Calligraphiti (1982), Furukawa even experiments with direct animation which involves drawing directly onto the film stock itself.

Furukawa’s most notable work combines his experimental tendencies with his playful sense of humour. In Phenakistoscope (Odorokiban, 1975), the film that won him the prestigious Special Grand Jury Prize at Annecy, Furukawa drew his inspiration from the 19th century pre-cinema device of the same name. Using frame-by-frame hand drawn animation techniques, Furukawa replicates the Phenakistoscope discs, animating all 18 stages of successive action at once. Some of the images he depicts are nods to the original subjects of the Phenakistoscope discs, such as a couple dancing, but he moves away from just recreating human movement into a realm of fantasy and the colourfully abstract: a skyscraper with looping freeways above it transforming into a tree, a bride and groom with their bodies elongating and shrinking like an accordion, a woman drinking soda through a straw whose head turns into a bubble that floats away. (Read my review of Phenakistascope to learn more and see same Phenakistascope illustrations).

Not only does Furukawa adapt old technologies to modern sensibilities, but when personal computers came on the scene in the 1980s he also demonstrated a willingness to experiment with new technologies. To the contemporary spectator, the playful doodle animation Mac the Movie (1985) seems unsophisticated to us today; however, it is significant as an early example of animation on an Apple Mac personal computer. The first Macintosh, with its groundbreaking graphics painting software program MacPaint, had only just been introduced the year before in January 1984. Furukawa highlights the playful nature of this experimental film by employing an equally lighthearted soundtrack: a synthesizer interpretation of ‘Singing in the Rain’. Qualities specific to this early personal computer technology include the flicker of the screen and the extra large pixel sizes. Play Jazz (1987) offers a more sophisticated early example of computer animation (I am guessing he did this on a Macintosh II because it’s in colour – the title may be a reference to Lotus Jazz), due in part to the advances in computer technology. The improvisational nature of the Matisse-inspired animation is reflected in the jazz music soundtrack. This combination of experimentation, improvisation, music and animation inevitably reminds one of Norman McLaren and Evelyn Lambart’s interpretation of Oscar Peterson’s jazz music in Begone Dull Care (NFB, 1949).

To learn morea bout Taku Furukawa, you can read my reviews of his films Speed, which won the Noburo Ofuji Prize for 1980 and Jyōkyō Monogatari (aka Tyo Story, 1999) - an animated reworking of Yasujiro Ozu's Tokyo Story (1953). He also made a number of shorts for the long-running NHK series Minna no Uta.

ORDER NOW

In addition to showcasing a selection of Furukawa's animations, illustrations and drawings, this exhibition also features installations by Furukawa.  If you are not lucky enough to be in Tokyo for this event, you can support this artist by ordering a selection of Furukawa's works from Anido.  

Taku Furukawa “A Playful Heart” Exhibition: “From a Single Line”
古川タク展「あそびココロ」“1本の線から”  (English info)
July 9th – August 14th

Kichijoji Art Museum
FF Bldg. 7F, 1-8-16 Kichijoji Hommachi, Musashino-shi, Tokyo 180-0004
Phone: 0422-22-0385 Fax: 0422-22-0386

Japanese Package Design Exhibition

One of the more interesting cultural events organised by Nippon Connection this year was the Japanese Package Design Exhibition. The accompanying text suggested that the curators were interested in comparing and contrasting Asian and Western attitudes towards design and packaging. One of the key texts cited by the curators was Richard E. Nisbett’s The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently. . . And Why (2003).

The exhibition space was AustellungHalle (Schulstr. 1a) in Sachsenhausen. The gallery is tucked inconspicuously down an alley. I would have walked straight past the entrance if someone had not cleverly stuck some brightly coloured Tohato Caramel Corn packages on the iron gratings.

The event space was minimalistically conceived. An open, white space with cardboard boxes placed in rows. On the left hand side of the entryway was an example of a clear plastic convenience store umbrella with clear plastic disposable sheath. Upon entering, I was first drawn to the giant Pretz display in the corner on the right. These Pretz (a Japanese version of pretzel sticks) boxes were designed with pop-out arms so that they can be hooked onto handbags. They were also designed to look like cute little animals.

On the right hand wall, there was a long explanation of the theory behind Japanese package design. In short, they evaluated the packaging in terms of three principles: the principle of connection (Zusammenhang), the principle of opposition (Widerspruchs), and the principle of change (Wandels).

Each of the cardboard boxes was an individual display case for an item. The item itself was in a little nook and spectators were encouraged to handle and examine the item. In order to learn more about each item, one had to open the crate. Each flap contained photographs of the product which emphasized the key elements of that item. Once open, the spectator could read a detailed explanation about the theory behind the design of the packaging.

Items featured included the collectable faces of Tohato caramel corn, Fit’s Lotte gum with a wrapper designed so that you never have to touch the gum, ILOHAS crushable drink bottles, UFO instant noodles with a built in strainer, the convenient bottles of Suntory tea , Meiji Curls with Norio Hikone’s characters on the packaging, the versatile and elegant Tirol chocolate packaging, Pos-ca gum that comes with a tissue for throwing the gum away once chewed, Kirin drinks designed to resemble exotic postcards from far-away lands, ingenious convenience store onigiri plastic wrap, Glico pudding with its air seal, Hyotan mineral water in a fancy bottle “too lovely to throw away”, and Meiji Xylish gum with its colourful exterior and silver under-wrapping.

It was a trip down memory lane for me. I only wish that some of the products had been available for purchase at the gallery. It made me quite homesick for Japanese bottled ice teas and salty snacks.

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2011

Nippon Connection 2011

The Legend of Kamui (カムイ 外伝 , 2009) in San Francisco

On November 19th at 7:15pm, The Red Lantern and VCinema will debut their joint movie screeening series with the 2009 Japanese film THE LEGEND OF KAMUI aka KAMUI GAIDEN, a live-action adaptation of the best-selling manga by Sampei Shirato. This is the West Coast premiere of the film.

Born a ninja. Die a ninja.

In 17th century Japan, disillusioned ninja Kamui finds himself on the run, in search of freedom. However, he discovers he's being hunted by members of his former clan who want to assassinate him for the clan secrets that he possesses. When he finally settles down in a small fishing village, Kamui finds himself face to face with an old nemesis whom he must deal with along with the ninja hunting party who are hot on his trail.

THE LEGEND OF KAMUI is a thrilling action movie starring some of the hottest talent in Japanese cinema today: Koyuki (THE LAST SAMURAI), Anna Tsuchiya (KAMIKAZE GIRLS), Suzuka Ohgoa and Japan Academy Award winner Kenichi Matsuyama (DETROIT METAL CITY, DEATH NOTE), (MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA). The film is directed by Yoichi Sai whose 2004 film BLOOD AND BONES garnered four Japan Academy Awards.

The film will be shown in Japanese with English subtitles.

Tickets will be $10 and will include a screening of the film as well as an post-movie reception with food and drinks and other goodies.

This event is open to the general public.

The Red Lantern is an Asian cinema meetup group located in the San Francisco Bay Area.

VCinema is an Asian cinema podcast also located in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Yokohama Art Navi (ヨコハマ・アートナビ)

Yokohama Art Navi’s Youtube Channel contains a mini-treasure trove of short alternative animation by young Japanese artists. The films were selected by renowned animator Koji Yamamura (see my reviews of Kafuka Inaka Isha, Atama Yama, and Man and Whale) and were all made within the last ten years. It’s an exciting video gallery of the best of rising animation talent in Japan. Many of these films have also been featured on the NHK program Digital Stadium.

Atsushi Wada’s Day of Nose (鼻の日/Hana no hi, 2005)

• Read my review of Day of Nose.

Ayaka Nakata’s Cornelis (コルネリス, 2008)

• read my review of Cornelis

Saori Shiroki’s Evening Light (夜の灯/Yoru no Hi, 2005)



Ryo Ookawara’s Animal Dance (アニマルダンス, 2009)

• Read my review of Animal Dance.

Masaki Okuda, Ryo Ookawara, and Yutaro Ogawa’s Orchestra (2008)



Wataru Uekusa’s Chisato Stared (向ヶ丘千里はただ見つめていたのだった, 2009)



Masashi Yokota’s Ikuemi no Zanrou ( いくえみの残像, 2007)



Takeo Shinkai’s Mountain and Man (山と人/Yama to Hito, 2007)



Takashi Kurihara’s Happy Bogeys (2000)



Takahiro Hayakawa’s Kashikokimono (2004)



Hiroco Ichinose’s The Last Breakfast (かなしい朝ごはん/Kanashii Asa-gohan, 2006)



Shiho Hirayama’s Swimming (2008)

• Read my review of Shiho Hirayama's first works.

Atamayama - Koji yamamura Sakuhinshu

Animation

Kenzo Masaoka’s Sakura (桜, 1946)

When it was made back in 1946, Kenzo Masaoka’s lyrical film Sakura (桜 / Cherry Blossoms) – also known as Spring Fantasy (春の幻想/ Haru no Gensou) – was not released theatrically because Toho felt that it was too artistic to succeed with the general public. Seldom screened in the intervening years, the neglect of the film is apparent in the poor quality of the film that Anido was able to digitally transfer to their DVD of Masaoka’s best works. Compare with screencaps of Benkei tai Ushiwaka (here) and Suteneko Tora-chan (here) to see what I mean.  It is even worse than the quality of The Spider and the Tulip, which is also full of scratches and colour fading.

Sakura is arguably Masaoka’s most lyrical film. The sensuality of the movement and the harmonious way the animation flows with the score of German Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber’s Invitation to the Dance (the Berlioz arrangement conducted by Leopold Stokowski) is truly a delight to behold. There is no dialogue in this film. Instead, we witness the awakening of spring, with butterfly-like fairies taking flight to celebrate the cherry blossoms. In addition to the fantasy and natural elements, maiko (geisha in training) in full kimono and geta are shown dancing and running in the park in celebration of hanami (cherry blossom viewing).

 Maiko dancing under the cherry blossoms 

- note the low angle in order to keep the branches in frame

Precious little has been written about this film, but I would imagine that the subject matter was chosen because it is devoid of any trace of propaganda (ie. it is not a traditional folk tale which would have been frowned upon by the American censors). It is also likely that Masaoka wanted to create a film tahat would celebrate  the end of the war, with the springtime theme recognizing the possibilities of a new beginning for Japan. The film is full of idyllic, cheerful images such as dogs playing in the park and a cat trying to catch a butterfly.  It expresses the hope that a peaceful and beautiful world will emerge from the devastation visible in so many Japanese cities in 1946.

 A surprisingly low angle of a maiko rushing at the camera 

- it heightens the excitement and keeps the sakura in frame

The film surprises with unusual angles – such as the extremely low angles in order to take in the branches of the trees as the maiko dance under them, the women running straight at the camera (perhaps to emphasize their excitement), and an imaginative POV shot from a fairy sitting on a balloon looking down at the park below. The choice of camera angles makes it clear that the cherry blossoms are the stars of this animation - not the people or the cute animals and fairies.  Cherry blossoms appear in almost every frame of the film.

 A young child with outstretched hands as his balloon floats away.

The park from the POV of a fairy who has caught up with the balloon.

My immediate thought while watching the film was that it may have been influenced by Walt Disney’s Fantasia (1940), but of course due to the war the film was not released in Japan until 1950. It is likely that Masaoka had at the very least read about Fantasia and seen stills from it. There is also the possibility that animators in Japan were able to privately screen the film long before its general release in the country. I know, for example, that Kihachiro Kawamoto spoke once in an interview of having seen Jiri Trnka’s The Emperor’s Nightingale (1949) screened privately at a custom’s house before it was publicly screened in Japan when he was an animator in training. Not being in Japan, my historical resources are limited on this score, so if anyone knows when Masaoka saw Fantasia, do leave a comment below.

 The fairy on the balloon as the rain begins to fall.

The comparison of Kenzo Masaoka to Walt Disney is an interesting one. There is no doubt that Masaoka’s skills as an animator are comparable to Disney, but that he lacked the resources (and later the eyesight) to make films of equal quality. Watching Sakura, one can only imagine what wonderous films Masaoka might have made if he had had access to funding and colour film stock (the latter being an impossibility in 1940s Japan).

A bonus fact, indirectly linked to this film, is that MGM animated a sequence using the same music as this film for Gene Kelly’s his landmark all-dance film Invitation to the Dance (Gene Kelly, 1956). This is a little known film due to its failure at the box office, but it is an important film in the history of dance. Click here to see how they shot Gene Kelly dancing to Invitation to the Dance with an animated woman.

This film appears on Anido's DVD of Kenzo Masaoka's Film Works, which may be ordered on their website.

Related Posts:
Benkei tai Ushiwaka
Tora-chan, the Abandoned Kitten
The Spider and the Tulip

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2010

Iida City Kawamoto Kihachirō Puppet Museum 飯田市川本喜八郎人形美術館

 High on my list of places to visit the next time I’m in Japan is the Iida City Kawamoto Kihachirō Puppet Museum (飯田市川本喜八郎人形美術館) in southern Nagano Prefecture. 

The ningyō jōruri ( aka bunraku) puppetry has been performed in Iida City for over 300 years. During the Edo period, the town became famous for its two main schools of ningyō jōruri performance: the Kuroda Puppet Troupe (黒田人形座) and the Imada Puppet Troupe (今田人形座).

In honour of the International Year of the Child in 1979, Iida City inaugurated its first Puppetry Carnival Iida which assembled top puppetry performers from all over Japan. Now known as the Iida Puppet Festa, this annual festival attracts performers and audiences from all over the world and boasts up to 250 performances held in the span of just a few days.

In 1990, Kihachirō Kawamoto presented his animation films at the festival and received a very warm reception. This led Kawamoto to donate 200 of his puppets to the Puppet Museum and they now make up the core of the museum’s extensive puppet collection.

Most of the puppets on display are from the two elaborate historical dramas that Kawamoto did for the NHK: Romance of the Three Kingdoms (1982-84) and Historical Doll Spectacular: The Story of Heike (1993-94). Romance of the Three Kingdoms (人形劇三国志/Ningyō-geki Sangokushi) was a co-production with CCTV in China and was an adaptation of the epic Chinese tale of the same name. To get an idea of just how epic this puppet drama is, consider that each episode runs for 45 minutes and there are a total of sixty-eight episodes. The story was written by Luo Guanzhong in the 14th century and takes place during the turbulent final years of the Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms era of China (169-230A.D.)

Historical Doll Spectacular: The Story of Heike (人形歴史スペクタル平家物語/Ningyō Rekishi Supekutakuru: Heike Monogatari) was a similarly ambitious project but consists of a more modest forty-eight 20-minute episodes. This is also an adaptation of an epic tale. The Story of Heike centers on the struggle between the Taira and Minamoto clans for control of Japan during the Genpei War (1180-1185).

The collection is dominated by the puppets of these two epics because of the sheer number of puppets needed for the productions. However, the collection also includes the puppets used in his acclaimed short films. International audiences will be more familiar with the puppets from films such as House of Flames (1979), Briar Rose or The Sleeping Beauty (1990), and Dōjōji Temple (1976) and To Shoot Without Shooting (1988). Less familiar to audiences, but of equal interest are the puppets Kawamoto created early in his career making animated commercials and puppet storybooks for Shiba Productions. Unlike the dolls used in his film and television productions, these early puppets were not designed by Kawamoto himself. Shigeru Hijikata designed the puppets, Tadasu Iizawa was responsible for story writing, and Kawamoto crafted and animated them.

For those of us unable to get to this museum in the near future, the next best thing is Heibonsha’s publication, Kawamoto Kihachirō: kono inochi-aru mono (川本喜八郎　この命あるもの / Kawamoto Kihachirō: Puppets full of life, 2007). My copy came in the post yesterday and it is full of simply stunning photographs.

The book gives a complete history of Kawamoto’s career, starting with behind the scenes photographs from the making of The Book of the Dead (Shisha no sho, 2005) and moving backwards to his start as an assistant art director at Tōhō Studios in the late 1940s. The book features a complete filmography including the production credits for all of his films. There is also a photographic index of all the dolls on display at the Iida museum. The book is full of a wealth of information and a must-have for any Kawamoto fan.

Iida City Kawamoto Kihachirō Puppet Museum

Iida City, Nagano Prefecture

Motomachi 1-2

Tel: 0265 23 3594

Kihachiro Kawamoto Sakuhin shu

Animation

Shisha no Sho

Puppet Show

Ningyougeki Sangokushi Zenshu 6

Puppet Show

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2010