Win Tickets to Toronto Screening of Beyond Anime: The Outer Limits

What: Beyond Anime: The Outer Limits (16 shorts)

When: July 15, 2012 at 6pm

Where: Revue Cinema, Toronto

This year’s Shinsedai Cinema Festival in Toronto is presenting an eclectic mix of animation by innovative young Japanese animators.  From the psychedelic visual assault of Yoshihiro Haku + Sachiko Hiraoka to the delicate visions of Sayaka Oku, Beyond Anime: The Outer Limits will take the audience on an adventure past the well trodden paths of anime to the farthest reaches of Japan’s animation landscape.  The programme was curated by Jasper Sharp of Midnight Eye and first presented at Zipangu Fest in London last fall.  The screening is being co-presented by the Toronto Comic Arts Festival.

Nishikata Film Review is giving away three double passes to this event.  To win, simply e-mail me at nishikataeiga(at)gmail by June 15, 2012 with the subject line “Beyond Anime” and the answer to this skill testing question:

Which animator in the Beyond Anime: The Outer Limits programme had his/her work featured on Nishikata Film Review in May?

a)  Mana Fujii

b)  KTOONZ

c)  Ryo Hirano

d)  Nasuka Saito

The correct answers will be put into a hat and three winners will be selected at random.  Good Luck!

Here is the full programme:

Syasou

 Ryu Furusawa 2008 2min

Ichigwankoku

 Ryo Hirano 2009 6min

Fantasy Girl

 Hanamushi (Akira Noyama) 2009 6min

Death of Phonebook

 Cinema Iloobia (Tim Grabham) 2011 2min

Stinky Winky 

KTOOONZ (Keiko Nakamura) 2002 2min

Requiem For Pioneer

 Yoshihiro Haku + Sachiko Hiraoka 2008 3min

Future Man

 Ryo Hirano 2008 7min

Doroningen

 Masahiro Osuka 2007 4min

Mizutamamoyo

 Ryu Furusawa 2006 5min

Enchanted Forest

 KTOOONZ (Keiko Nakamura) 1994 9min

A Labyrinth of Residence

 Nasuka Saito 2008 5min

TA-TA TOSY TiT

 Yoshihiro Haku + Sachiko Hiraoka 2009 5min

The Straw Girl and the Strange House

 Hanamushi (Akira Noyama) 2009 1min

Holiday

 Ryo Hirano 2011 14min

Melting Medama

 Sayaka Oku 2011 5min

The Last Train

 Mana Fujii 2008 3min

The Modern Films of Mirai Mizue

The innovative experimental artist Mirai Mizue often takes a scientific approach to animation.  With each new film or film series, he challenges his discipline as an artist (take his current Wonder 365 Animation Project where he aims to make animation every day for a whole year) and investigates the theoretical possibilities of his craft.

Modern (2010) and Modern No. 2(2011) further explore the method of geometric animation which Mizue used for the first time in Metropolis(2009).  These films are made using isometric drawings planned out on graph paper, and are inspired by optical illusions such as the graphic art of M.C. Escher. 

In the “Making Of” extra on the DVD Mirai Mizue Works 2003-2010, Mizue explains that for Modern, he set himself the rule that he could only use three kinds of lines: one vertical and two slanting.  Thus the film consists only of the transformation of rectangular parallelepipeds.  Mizue was interested in making as interesting a film as possible using a minimal number of elements in order to prove the theory that animation can be very good when one imposes a limitation on movements.  It would be very easy, and much less time consuming, to make films like Modern and Modern No. 2 using CG software but the look and feel of the film would be very different.  There is a warmth and tactility to Mizue’s films that would be lost if the lines were computer generated. 

Modern and Modern No. 2 have a lot of visual similarities in terms of graphic style, but they are at the same time quite distinct from one another.  Modern begins completely in grey scale then the shapes take on bright colours that stand out against the foggy grey background and the whole frame outlined by a soft black outline.  The rhythm is much slower in Modern than in Modern No. 2 because Mizue asked his composer, twoth, to increase the tempo.  Modern also had a much more consistent tempo, whereas with Modern No. 2 Mizue experiments with variations in speed. 

The biggest change with Modern No. 2 is the change in colour.  For his earlier films, Mizue tended to use plain paper, but for Modern No. 2 he uses traditionally made paper with texture.  This creates a wonderful textured effect with the threads of the paper visible and jumping about from frame to frame.  The colour palette for the geometric shapes is inspired by traditional Japanese art – colourful and dynamic yet more muted than in Modern.

It is an exhilarating experience to watch Mirai Mizue’s geometric films.  The precision of movement and the way in which the animation works in together with the soundtrack is truly a wonder to behold.  Modern appears on the DVD Mirai Mizue Works 2003- 2010.  Please support his artist by ordering it today.

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2012

Modern and Modern No. 2 screened at:

In a Pig's Eye (わからないブタ, 2010)

  

A giant pig lies in an ordinary garden, blocking the door to the house.  The house is occupied by a large and unusual family: wife, husband, grandmother, and six nearly identical chubby boys.  The atmosphere inside the house is dark and oppressive: the balding, middle-aged husband slices deli meat, decorating his body with the slices while the wife tries to push granny up the stairs while chewing on snacks she keeps in her apron.  Life in the garden seems more carefree: a boy embraces a piglet in the branches of a tree, another boy is blown in a series of gentle front tucks by air blown through, a boy swings like an acrobat from the tree, while another pretends to fish from the rooftop.  The repetitive activities of everyday life come to an end with the wail of the town siren.  The family makes a circle around the giant pig and do a kind of ritualized dance. Is this all real life or just a dream?  

In a Pig's Eye (Wakaranai buta, 2010) is independent animator Atsushi Wada’s graduation film from the graduate animation programme at Tokyo University of the Arts.   With In a Pig’s Eye, Wada continues his exploration of the artistic concept of “ma” or the “spaces in between.”  As with his earlier works, the animation is drawn frame by frame using pencil on paper, with subtle colours added during the computer editing process.  Compared to his earlier work, this film has a wonderful sepia hue to it that recalls traditional paintings done on scroll paper.

The film revisits many themes and motifs typical of an Atsushi Wada film: subtle character movements, domestic animals (in this case pigs and a dog), chubby boys, and repetition of movement.  The dreary everyday chores of life depicted inside the house are in stark contrast to the more carefree play outside, yet the film as a whole depicts both the tedium and absurdity of ordinary day-to-day life.  For me the giant pig in the garden symbolizes the types of inexplicable curveballs life sometimes throws at us.  You can allow it to trap you (like the boy trying and failing to leave the house), or you can make the best of it and discover something really wonderful (the boy being blown into the air by the pig).

When I have been at screenings of Atsushi Wada’s earlier films – particularly Manipulated Man (2006) and Day of Nose (2005) – audiences have tended to be quite silent either with wonder or with incredulity.  Mechanism of Spring (2010) and In a Pig’s Eyeare the first Wada films where I actually felt the audiences engage in a warm way with his art.  In fact, In a Pig’s Eye has some slapstick elements (door slamming into pig; boy suddenly falling; etc.) that made me laugh out loud at the absurdity of it all.  Thus I was surprised to learn from Wada, that the films were made with only aesthetics and not comedy in mind.  At the Filmmaker's Talk that I hosted at Nippon Connection 2012, Wada revealed that he had been quite shocked the first time he attended a screening of one of his films at an international festival (it was at VIFF) to hear the audience laughing out loud at his film.

Wada reminded me that film audiences in Japan do not make any noise while watching a screening (they don’t even scream during horror films!), so he cannot tell if Japanese audiences find his films amusing or not.  Western audiences are not shy about expressing genuine emotion during a screening, and the reaction to In a Pig’s Eye at festivals has been largely positive.  The film has won several awards including Best Film at Fantoche in 2010 and the Prix DeVarti for the funniest film at the Ann Arbor Film Festival 2011.  


When Wada was speaking to me about his films I was reminded of Luigi Pirandello's absurdist meta-theatrical play Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921) and theories about authorial intention.  A creator of art obviously wishes for their creation to be well received by spectators, but once an artwork is created it takes on a life of its own.  Although audiences may not be receiving the work in the way that Wada intended, it is surely a wonderful thing that the film has taken on a life of its own and delighted audiences around the world.  


Each frame of a Wada film is a work of art in itself.  During the Filmmaker's Talk I asked him about whether or not he preferred working with film or digitally (he had to use 8mm film for Concerning the Rotation of a Child (2004) when he was a student at Image Forum).  Wada prefers making his films digitally because he draws such fine lines using a mechanical pencil.  These fine lines are more difficult to capture with film, so digitally scanning the images gives him a much better result.


Wada explains more about his technique on the CALF DVD Atsushi Wada Works 2002-2010 which also includes In a Pig's Eye.

Order Now

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2012

Animafest Zagreb 2012

Atsushi Wada's birthday card to Animafest

Animafest Zagreb is celebrating its 40^th anniversary this year.  The renowned festival has been held biannually since 1972, and annually since 2005.  After Annecy, Animafest is the second oldest animation festival in the world and an important cultural event in Croatia.  The guests of honour at this year’s festival, which runs from May 29^th until June 3^rd, are the “godfather of Animafest” Yoji Kuri and winner of three Animafest grand prizes Priit Pärn (Breakfast on the Grass, 1895, and Divers in the Rain).  Pärn will be on this year’s Grand Prize jury.

Kuri is being presented with the Animafest Lifetime Achievement Award. Most of his films will be screened at the festival including many which have never been screened before in Croatia or in Europe. There will also be a rare opportunity to see Ryo Saitani’s documentary Here We Are with Yoji Kuri (2008).  Animafest will also be hosting a Q+A with Kuri.    Events: Yoji Kuri 1, Yoji Kuri 2, Yoji Kuri 3,

Evolution (Yoji Kuri,1976)

Among the wide array of programmes on offer this year is Grand Prix 1972-2012, a nostalgic look back at past winners of the festival.  It is a wonderful cross-section of world animation from Canada to Russia.  I saw Ivan Ivanov-Vano and Yuri Norstein’s The Battle of Kerzhenets (1971), which won the first Animafest, at the Kawamoto-Norstein event in Paris and if they are  showing it on film than it is worth travelling a long way to see 14^th-16^th century Russian frescoes and paintings come to life.  The programme includespast Japanese winners of the grand prizeOsamu Tezuka’s Jumping and Koji Yamamura’s Mount Head.   

This festival will also feature an exhibition entitled 40 Years of Animagest Zagreb, 1972-2012 at the ULUPUH Gallery.  Historical documents and letters, documentary videos, festival trailers, awards, photographs, birthday and other cards by world-acclaimed authors, graphic identities and objects made from 1972 until present will be on display. The exhibition will also feature works by renowned artists from former Yugoslavia and Croatia, who contributed to the festival identity such as Nedeljko Dragić, Pavao Štalter, Miroslav Šutej, Zvonimir Lončarić, Borivoj Dovniković, and Zlatko Bourek.  This year’s festival logo, designed by Damir Gamulin and Tina Ivezić, is a reinterpretation of the most iconic posters from past festivals including designs by Nedeljko Dragić, Zvonimir Lončarić, Pavao Štalter, Borivoj Dovniković and Vladimir Straža (1978), Zvonimir Lončarić (1980), and Borivoj Dovniković and Mihajlo Arsovski (1998).

Koji Yamamura's birthday card to Animafest

In addition to Yoji Kuri, several Japanese animators are screening works at this year’s festival.  Mirai Mizue’s Modern No. 2 (2011), Atsushi Wada’s The Great Rabbit (2012), Shin Hashimoto’s Beluga (2011) are in the grand prize competition.  Alimo’s Island of Man (2011) and Masaki Okuda’s A Gum Boy (2011) are in the student competition.  In addition, Mizue’s music video AND AND (2011) is in the commissioned films competition.  Koji Yamamura’s Muybridge’s Strings (2011) and Isamu Hirabayashi’s 663114 (2011) are both showing as part of the Grand Panorama and Okuda’s Uncapturable Ideas (2011) and Ryo Orikasa’s Scripta Volanta (2011) will feature in the Student Panorama.  Good luck to all.

The Curious Animated World of Ryo Hirano

With so many young animators coming out of art colleges these days, it is only those who have a truly unique vision or aesthetic that stand out from the crowd.  Ryō Hirano (ひらのりょう,  b.1988) is fast becoming known at home and abroad for his weirdly wonderful animated shorts.  Born in 1988 in Kasukabe, Saitama, Hirano is a graduate of the Information Design programme at Tama Art University and he is managed by is managed by Foghorn.

In 2009, Hirano was one of a group of students selected to participate in the creation of the collaborative  project “music video orchestra” for the experimental collaborative group Omodaka at the 13^th Japan Media Arts Festival.  Last year, he won the Japan Media Arts Festival “New Face Award” for his animated music video for Omodaka’s latest song “Hietsuki Bushi”.    He has also recently done a music video for OvertheDogs, a young band also represented by Foghorn.

According to Yuki Harada’s interview with Hirano last year, Hirano began experimenting with animation during the summer holidays of his first year of university.  He took courses in photography and programming at Tamabi, but felt that he didn’t really excel in those areas.  He also picked up basic training in the use of animation software while at Tamabi (source: public-image.org).  The first film Hirano ever made was an amusing short-short called “Udara Udara” which features cute little hand-drawn creatures on photographs of natural habitats.  He did the sound for this film himself (read review and watch video).

His next film was Future Man which he made as a project for a university course where they were asked to make something about living beings.  In preparation for this film, he read up on ant ecology and used this knowledge as the basis of his film.  One of the details that struck him as remarkable was that scientists who study ants found that their behaviour is not driven by sympathy or love for the ant queen but that it is the evolutionary drive to maximize one’s DNA.    In Future Man, he substitutes humans for the ants.  The many drawings that he did resulted in a 7 minute animation, which gave him a great feeling of accomplishment (read review and watch video).

His third work was Midnight Zoo.  It was based on a dream he had had where he was sucked into a zoo.  In this animation, Hirano wanted to show the connection between humans and animals.  Hirano is drawn to the grotesque (guro) tradition of art in Japan and elsewhere.  The manga of Hideshi Hino has been a major influence on him.  In his interview with Harada, Hirano states that he has always been drawn to the fantastic and the grotesque. Other major artistic influences that he cites are the manga-ka Shigeru Mizuki of GeGeGe no Kitaro fame, the independent animation of Igor Kovalyov, and Garo (ガロ) manga.

Themes that interest Hirano are the transformation of the body – which is perhaps why he is drawn to the grotesque and to yōkai (supernatural creatures).  He has said that he is “interested in the fact that even if you change the body, the essence doesn’t change” and this is a theme that he explores in his works.  Another theme is “boy meets girl” love.  He has tried to express this type of romantic feeling in both Midnight Zoo and Holiday.

Interestingly, Hirano says that he wants to make things that are sugoku guroi (super-grotesque), but that it is sometimes difficult not to overdo it.  In his desire not to overdo the grotesque elements in his work, the result  often turns out more cute than grotesque. When I read this I immediately thought of Hirano’s The Kappa’s Arms which is quite grotesque – I mean a kappa has his arms torn out and bleeds all over the place – but remains quite a cute animation on the whole.

In terms of method, Hirano tends to plan just the first and last scene in his animated shorts and the in-between part just comes naturally.  As a result of this relaxed approach, things that he experiences in his everyday life during the production process often get reflected in the finished film.  For example, The Kappa’s Arms was impacted by the death of a friend during the animation process (read review and watch film).  His work is also heavily influenced by what he reads.  The Kappa’s Arms was initially based on a kappa folktale Hirano discovered in a book, and Ichigwankoku (One-Eyed Country) was based on an old rakugotale (read review).

Hirano’s animation has a unique look because of his use of collage.  Drawn elements are mixed with photographed images and sometimes even real objects.  He apparently prefers watching documentaries to watching animation but as an artist prefers animation to live action because he can control the final results more.  Also, with animation the audience is much more willing to go on a journey into the fantastic.  In a way, animation is Hirano’s jibun no documentary – a documentary of his inner self.  He can express what he wants to say without any uneasy feeling (iwakan).

We showed Ryo Hirano’s film Holiday at Nippon Connectionthis year.  It is his graduate film from Tamabi and the themes are once again love and the body.  He made the film based upon memories of the summer holidays (read review and watch trailer).  Holiday has raised Hirano’s profile as an animator as the film has been picked up by many international festivals.  In order to make a living, he continues to do commercial work such as music videos and the Space Showa TV station ID.   I hope that he finds the funding to continue making indie fare because he shows a lot of promise as an artist. 

A great deal of the information for this article was gleaned from an interview with Hirano by Yuki Harada (source: public-image.org) and through correspondence with Hirano himself.  To read more click on hyperlinked the titles below.

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2012

Filmography

2007  udara udara (うだらうだら)

2008  Future Man (蟻人間物語/Ari Ningen Monogatari)

2008  Midnight Zoo (深夜動物園/Shinya Dōbutsuen)

2009  music video orchestra (collaborative work for Omodaka)

2009  The Kappa’s Arms (河童の腕/Kappa no Ude)

2009  Ichigwankoku/ One-Eyed Country (一眼国/Ichigankoku)

2009  Guitar (ギター)

2010 Kensaku Shōnen (検索少年, Tabito Nanao music video)

2011  Hietsuki Bushi (ひえつき節/Omodaka music video)

2011 Space Shower TV Station ID

2011  Holiday(ホリデイ)

Ryo Hirano’s Holiday (ホリデイ, 2011)

Holiday (ホリデイ, 2011) is Ryo Hirano’s graduate film from Tama University of Art and the theme is one that he has explored before: love and the body.  Hirano has said that the concept was based on memories of the summer holidays (source: public-image.org) – and if you’ve ever experienced a swelteringly hot summer in central Japan you will understand how it might inspire a trippy, fantastical such as this one.

The film opens with an iris shot of a romantic lakeside resort with multicoloured gondolas quietly passing over the stretch of water.  It is as if we are viewing the scene through a telescope.  The idyllic scene abruptly ends with the next cut as we are suddenly confronted with an imori (an akahara imori / Japanese fire belly newt to be precise) stuck in a pipe.  The stuggle of the imori is in stark contrast to the idyllic sound of piano playing.  A rush of water sends the imori flying out of the tap and into a young woman’s drinking glass.  The woman drinks as she walks across the room and we see that she is in a Japanese room with tatami floor and the sliding doors wide open to reveal the lush landscape rising from the lake.  A naked man painted gold plays a miniature piano on his lap.  The girl chokes on the imori and falls to the floor, the idyll of the scene interrupted as she crawls to the toilet to throw up.  The imori walks out of the bathroom covered in puke – as he wipes it off himself we are treated to the revolting inducing image of a three-dimensional, realistic looking sick pile hitting a drawn tatami floor.  The girl lies prone on the floor as the gold man tries to help her recover and the imori beg her forgiveness by bowing.

Holiday Trailer:

The next scene really does say Japanese summer holiday: the imori in a hotel yukata stands smoking under a tree in front of the Lake View Hotel with a glorious view of the lake marred by a road cutting right through it.  Typical.  The naked gold man pulls up in a red car with the girl looking ill, but somewhat recovered and they take the imori on a journey with them.  The unlikely threesome put on a concert in a band shell in the forest.  Their only spectator is a naked, well-endowed cat who philosophizes about love.  The girl coughs until she collapses on stage and metamorphoses into an ear.  The imori – possibly enraged with guilt – attacks the cat.  The cat made me think of Kenji Miyazawa, but I do not know it this was Hirano’s intention.

Back in the Japanese hotel room, the ear sits on the table as the gold man cries.  He comes up with the ingenious idea of descending the imori into the ear by tying a rope to his tail.   At first, this seems to go well, until the imori gets stuck and the gold man rips off his tail in a futile effort to pull him out.  The imagery from here on out gets more and more dreamlike with piano music played from the ear like a radio, the girl running in the dark and crying, the red car floating in the air and rain falling in slow motion, and lovely landscapes.  It is a strange tale of love and loss blurred together like hazy memories of a lakeside holiday during Obon.

While working on this animation, Hirano saw a woman interviewed on TV who was upset by the suicide of the Korean actor and singer Park Yong-ha (1977-2010).  Through her tears, the woman said that the rain that fell that day was the rain of Park Yong-ha. (source: public-image.org)  This notion of a deceased person being turned into rain made a strong impression on Hirano and he incorporated it into this unusual animated tale of love and friendship between a man, a woman, and an imori.    

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2012

Filmography

2007  udara udara (うだらうだら)

2008  Future Man (蟻人間物語/Ari Ningen Monogatari)

2008  Midnight Zoo (深夜動物園/Shinya Dōbutsuen)

2009  music video orchestra (collaborative work for Omodaka)

2009  The Kappa’s Arms (河童の腕/Kappa no Ude)

2009  Ichigwankoku/ One-Eyed Country (一眼国/Ichigankoku)

2009  Guitar (ギター)

2010 Kensaku Shōnen (検索少年, Tabito Nanao music video)

2011  Hietsuki Bushi (ひえつき節/Omodaka music video)

2011 Space Shower TV Station ID

2011  Holiday (ホリデイ)

This film screened at:

The Kappa’s Arms (河童の腕, 2009)

It is said in Japanese folklore that the kappa are water sprites that, like the endangered Japanese giant salamander, inhabit streams.  Mischievous creatures, the kappa have been depicted as everything from harmless creatures who challenge those they meet to various tests of skill to threatening creatures who have been blamed for drowning and the rape of women.  In recent years, kappa have featured in everything from anime such as Keiichi Hara’s Summer Dayswith Coo (2007) to Shinji Imaoka’s pink film musical Underwater Love (2011).

The indie animator Ryo Hiranobased his 2009 short film The Kappa’s Arms (河童の腕/Kappa no Ude) on a story he had a read about a kappa losing its arm.  He initially developed one page of scribbles like a manga and based on that rough sketch developed the concept further.  As Hirano was working on this animation, a friend of his passed away, and this altered the story significantly.  This is Hirano’s most personal film to date, with a letter his mother once sent him when he was an exchange student in New Zealand also influencing the plot (source: Public Image)

On a flat rock in a quiet stream, two young kappa, one green and one yellow, playfully sumo wrestle with each other.  Fun turns to horror as the green kappa loses his balance and grabs onto the yellow kappa’s arm to prevent himself from falling into the water.  He ends up tearing both arms from his friend’s body, leaving the yellow kappa with bloody stumps.  The yellow kappa seems unperturbed by this until the green kappa playfully runs away with the arms.  He tries catch up with his friend but stumbles on a stone and floats away downstream.

The yellow kappa’s arms struggle free from the green kappaand jump into the stream as well.  The green kappa then spots his friends lifeless body and dives into the stream to try to rescue him.  The tearful green kappa and his friend’s arms wash up at a seaside resort and in this new mysterious habitat with strange visitations from a rainbow coloured triangular UFO, the green kappa faces the grief of having lost his friend. 

The Kappa’s Arms is a mixed media film that mainly relies on cutouts for the character movement.  The soundtrack mainly consists of natural sounds (flowing stream, bird calls) until the dream-like sequence at the end when Hirano adds music to the mix.  It is one of Hirano’s most straightforward stories and demonstrates his love of the grotesque (guro) in manga and animation.  Friendship conquers all in this little story.  .  .  just not in the way that you might expect.

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2012

Watch the film for yourself on Hirano's official Youtube channel.

Learn more about Ryo Hirano on his official website.

Filmography

2007  udara udara (うだらうだら)

2008  Future Man (蟻人間物語/Ari Ningen Monogatari)

2008  Midnight Zoo (深夜動物園/Shinya Dōbutsuen)

2009  music video orchestra (collaborative work for Omodaka)

2009  The Kappa’s Arms (河童の腕/Kappa no Ude)

2009  Ichigwankoku / One-Eyed Country (一眼国/Ichigankoku)

2009  Guitar (ギター)

2010  Kensaku Shōnen (検索少年, Tabito Nanao music video)

2011  Hietsuki Bushi (ひえつき節/Omodaka music video)

2011  Space Shower TV Station ID

2011  Holiday (ホリデイ)

Nippon Connection 2012

Nippon Connection starts next week in Frankfurt am Main and once again has put together an impressive programme of events.  I put together the animated shorts screening Spaces In Between: Indie Animated Shorts from Japan (Thursday, May 3, 20:00).  The title of the programme is a nod to animation guest this year Atsushi Wada.  Wada won the Silver Bear at this year’s Berlinale for his latest film The Great Rabbit (2012).  The programme features work by top indie animators from Akino Kondoh to Kōji Yamamura.  This event will be followed by a filmmaker’s talk with Wada at 22:30.  I will write more about the animated shorts later this week.

I will also be giving a lecture called Kihachirō Kawamoto’s Quest for the Ultimate Expression of Puppets  where I look at the diverse influences on him as an animator (Friday, May 4, 18:00). This presentation is based in part on the chapter I wrote for the Directory of World Cinema: Japan 2 (Intellect Books, 2012) edited by John Berra, but will feature images and film clips that could not be included in the book.  It will be a kind of a visual journey through the early part of Kawamoto’s career.

I have also organized one of the children’s events this year.  There will be a book reading (in Japanese and German) of the first of the popular children’s books Rita and Whatsit(Rita to Nantoka/Rita und Dingsda) followed by five episodes of the children’s animation series.  The books were originally written in French by Jean-Philippe Arrou-Vignodand illustrated by Olivier Tallec.  They were adapted into animation through a co-production between Planet Nemo and Nippon Animation.   The series is not only great entertainment for kids, but fascinating for animation fans because Nippon Animation employed not only in-house animators but also indie animators to direct individual episodes (see Anipages).   Planet Nemo is currently working on the English release of the 26 episode series.

Other events sure to delight animation fans are screenings of Makoto Shinkai’s Children Who Chase Lost Voices from Deep Below (2011) and the digital shorts series Onedotzero: J-Star 11 which features Mirai Mizue’s Construction (2011).  Mizue’s Modernand Modern No. 2 will also be screening as part of the Wada event mentioned above.

On the opening night of Nippon Connection, I am planning on attending Kaneto Shindo’s Postcard(2010).  Shindo (b. 1912) is one of the oldest working filmmakers in the world, having celebrated his hundredth birthday last Sunday.  I believe the oldest, still actively working film director is Portugal’s Manoel de Oliveira (b. 1908).

One must-see event on the programme is the rare chance to catch a live Benshi performance.  Beshi Ichiro Kataoka and the musical group Otowaza are presenting Jirokichi the Rat (1931).  The film is one of only about 20 silent films made by the celebrated trio of director Daisuke Itō (1898-1981), actor Okochi Denjiro (1898-1962) and cinematographer Karasawa Hiromitsu (1900-80) to survive in its entirety.  It was groundbreaking in its day for its use of close-ups and exciting action scenes.    

Yonghi Yang’s feature film debut Our Homeland (2012) will also screening at the festival.   I was deeply moved by her documentary Sona, the Other Myself (2010) at Nippon Connection 2010 and am excited that Yang will also be a guest at the festival this year.  I am also looking forward to seeing Nobuhiro Yamashita’s latest film My Back Page(2011).  Yamashita is a festival favourite with his films Linda, Linda, Linda (2005) and A Gentle Breeze in the Village (2007) having been warmly received at the festival in past years. 

Nippon Retro this year celebrates protest culture in Japanese documentary films.  Rare documentaries from the sixties including Shinsuke Ogawa’s The Oppressed Students (1967) and Summer in Narita (1968), Noriaki Tsuchimoto’s Prehistory of the Partisans (1969) and Minamata: The Victims and their World (1971), and Keiya Ouchida’s Underground Square (1969) will be playing along contemporary fare like Yuki Nakamura’s Amateur Riot (2010) and Ying Li’s Yasukuni(2007).

There are a number of events dedicated to the events of March 11, 2011.  Isamu Hirabayashi’s 663114(2011) will screen as part of the animation event I mentioned above.  There will also be a screenings of 3.11 Tomorrow, the Sendai Short Film Festival Project, Yojyu Matsubayashi’s  Fukushima: Memories of a Lost Landscape (2011),  Toshi Fujiwara’s documentary No Man’s Zone (2011), Masaki Kobayashi’s Fukushima Hula Girls (2011), and much more. The Japanology department of Frankfurt’s Goethe University will also be giving a number of papers examining the current state of things one year after the disaster in Fukushima.

I am looking forward to seeingShinya Tsukamoto’s critically acclaimed film Kotoko (2011).  In addition, Nippon Connection will see the international premiere of Nobuhiko Obayashi’s Casting Blossoms to the Sky (2011).  Other intriguing films being screening this year include Hitoshi Matsumoto’s latest film Saya Zamurai (2011), Takashi Miike's Ichimei (Hara Kiri: Death of a Samurai, 2011), Kei Umezawa’s documentary Coming Out Story (2011) examines the hard realities of the life of a transsexual, Phillipe Grandrieux’s documentary about legendary screenwriter and filmmaker Masao Adachi It May Be that Beauty has Strengthened our Resolve (2011), and Neil Cantwelland Tim Grabham’s KanZeOn (2011).  

This is only a taste of the films and events on offer at Nippon Connection 2012.  Head on over to their website to learn more.  I look forward to seeing you all there!

udara udara (うだらうだら, 2007)

The short-short udara udara (うだらうだら, 2007) is young animator Ryo Hirano’s first foray into animation.  Photographs of natural settings are overlaid with cute, hand drawn creatures who sigh, hum, fart, buzz, and sneeze along to a percussive beat.  Hirano did both the animation and the soundtrack himself. 

It’s a simple, straightforward scenario, but it already demonstrates themes and motifs that one sees throughout Hirano’s animation career so far: a fondness for mixed media, an awareness of the relationship between the rhythms of the soundtrack and the rhythm of editing and animation movement, and the use of creatures that are part human, part animal, part pure fantasy.  Most importantly, the film foregrounds the sense of humour that has made Hirano’s films stand out among the films of his young peers.

Watch the film for yourself:

Learn more about Ryo Hirano on his official website.

Filmography

2007  udara udara (うだらうだら)

2008  Future Man (蟻人間物語/Ari Ningen Monogatari)

2008  Midnight Zoo (深夜動物園/Shinya Dōbutsuen)

2009  music video orchestra (collaborative work for Omodaka)

2009  The Kappa’s Arms (河童の腕/Kappa no Ude)

2009  Ichigwankoku / One-Eyed Country (一眼国/Ichigankoku)

2009  Guitar (ギター)

2010  Kensaku Shōnen (検索少年, Tabito Nanao music video)

2011  Hietsuki Bushi (ひえつき節/Omodaka music video)

2011  Space Shower TV Station ID

2011  Holiday (ホリデイ)

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