London Film Fest 2011 Day 1 - 360

Jude Law and Rachel Weisz as an estranged couple in 360

It has long been my experience that the most interesting and exciting films showing at the London Film Festival are those tucked away in the heart of the programme, rather than the red-carpet galas, where one suspects the programmer's hand has been forced by the exigencies of publicity and sponsorship.  Sadly, 360 proved no exception to this rule.  Worse than that, one suspects that Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles' early success with the dazzling CITY OF GOD was a fluke.  Ever since then, his films have maintained their visual style, but lost pace, energy, and tackled subject matter with a heavy handed earnestness that belies their insight.  One wishes that he would stop trying to be clever-clever with his narrative devices and just tell a good, simple story.  

The too-clever concept at the heart of 360 is to show the interweaving stories of people across the world  - the only commonality is how each of them experience a seemingly arbitrary event changes their lives.  The story takes us from a failing marriage in middle-class London (Jude Law, Rachel Weisz) to hookers and Russian mafiosi in Vienna (Moritz Bleibtrau) - from  sex offenders and grieving parents in Denver (Ben Foster, Anthony Hopkins) to forbidden love in Paris (Jamel Debbouze).  In each case, characters are introduced, their love affairs and dilemmas explained, an event occurs, its ramifications start to be explored, and the matter is dropped. Perhaps in a later strand we will meet the character again and see them from a different angle.  But by then, so much has been going on, so many characters introduced, so little time given to being able to emotionally bond with them, that we are past caring.  I left the cinema feeling totally "blah".  I had watched a parade of characters and frankly, didn't care about a single one of them.  And as for the "message" of this ponderous work, it's hardly revelatory or profound.  Some people are cynical sleazebags - some people still naively take a chance on love - the world keeps turning - and random events can change the path we move along. 

Jude Law and director Fernando Meirelles present
360 at the Opening Night of the BFI London
Film Festival 2011.

The result is a film that is utterly unmemorable and actually rather tragic when one considers the talent deployed.  To be sure, cinematographer Adriano Goldman (JANE EYRE, SIN NOMBRE, CONVICTION) creates some arresting visuals, but the rest of the talent is below par.  The actors have little to get their teeth into and are rather unforgettable, except for Anthony Hopkins hamming it up. To be fair, Hopkins is only responding to one of those awfully obvious crass Academy-Award-aspirant speeches by screenwriter Peter Morgan (THE QUEEN) when he finally comes to an epiphany in an AA meeting. 

Overall then, 360 is yet another film by Fernando Meirelles that is technically accomplished, but fails to provide us with characters that we care about and situations that are compelling.  A serious own-goal by screenwriter Peter Morgan too, moving from his typically more straightforward biopic material into some more narratively ambitious, and clearly beyond his capabilities. 

360 premiered at London 2011 and will play Toronto 2011. It will open in Sweden on October 19th 2012.

The Monkey Masamune (猿正宗, 1930)

During the late Kamakura period, there lived a famous swordsmith known as Masamune whose renown as a swordsmith was so great that even long after his passing the term “Masamune” was used to describe any fine sword. Even today, the Masamune Prize is awarded to swordsmiths of outstanding skills in their craft. In Yasuji Murata’s cutout animation The Monkey Masamune (猿正宗/Saru masamune, 1930) a humble messenger is rewarded with the gift of a Masamune sword when he saves the life of a monkey and her child.

Murata ((村田安司, 1896-1966), one of Japan’s top early animators, is renowned for his skills as a cutout animator. He learned the craft of animation from Sanae Yamamoto (山本 早苗, 1898-1981) and became a pioneer in the field of educational animation. He made films for the Yokohama Cinema company.

Although the screenplay is an original one by Chuzo Aochi, the tale follows a pattern familiar in Japanese folk tales in which a person rescues an animal and receives a reward for his good deed. In fact, in The Monkey Masamune the messenger performs two good deeds: first saving the monkeys from the wrath of the hunter and after they present him with his reward, he uses the Masamune to rescue the hunter from a wild boar.

The Monkey Masamune is a deceptively simple black and white cutout animation. The cutouts have been so meticulously drawn and move so smoothly that in some scenes they could almost be mistaken for cel animation. In the liner notes to the Zakka Films release, Aaron Gerow explains that Murata “did not just move the pieces of paper, but changed them between frames to show more complex body movements like turning around” (The Roots of Japanese Anime, p.7).

Although the opening sequence consists only of the messenger running to deliver his message, Murata – who by this time was a seasoned animator with more than a dozen animated shorts under his belt – demonstrates his sophistication as an animator by varying the camera distance and angles. In one shot, the camera appears to be tracking left over a painterly landscape that unfolds in the background like a scroll.

When the messenger pauses for a break, we have a panning shot of the landscape that suggests we are seeing it from the messenger’s point-of-view. He playfully looks at the scenery upside-down by bending over and looking between his legs. As his head wiggles amusingly from side-to-side, Murata cuts to an unusual point-of-view shot that shakes back and forth briefly before the man comically falls over and lands on his bottom. We have become inured to the use of shaky cams in POV shots, but for 1930 this was quite unusual and innovative.

Just as I noted in my recent review of Noburo Ofuji’s Chinkoroheibei and the Treasure Box, Murata also uses irises to focus in on dialogue and action.  In the messengers confrontation with the hunter, the a box-shaped matte is placed over the scene, and has the effect of intensifying the drama of the scene.

The Monkey Masamune was originally silent and likely had benshi accompaniment during screenings.  The Roots of Japanese Anime  DVD features the soundtrack that was later added to the film, but there are still the occasional title cards that point to the film’s origins as a silent film. The film is not in as good a condition as the Ofuji films on the DVD, but despite the flashing and scratching it is still watchable.

The Zakka Films DVD has optional English subtitles and comes with an informative booklet featuring an  historical overview by Jasper Sharp (Midnight Eye) and film notes by Aaron Gerow (Yale U). Individuals can purchase this DVD for a reasonable price from independent film distributor Film Baby. Institutions should contact Zakka Films directly for purchasing information.

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2011

Chinkoroheibei and the Treasure Box (ちんころ平平玉手箱, 1936)

The early anime pioneer Noburo Ofuji (大藤 信郎, 1900-1961) is best known for his kirigami (cutout) animaton and kage-e (silhouette) animation. He was also quite skilled in the art of cel animation as demonstrated by his 1936 animated short Chinkoroheibei and the Treasure Box (ちんころ平平玉手箱/Chinkoroheibei to tamatebako).

An upbeat, lively animation aimed at a young audience, Chinkoroheibei and the Treasure Box tells the tale of a young fellow named Chinkoroheibei. He is a mischievous character with a real knack for getting himself into trouble either unwittingly or due to his own heedless actions. Taking a nap under a tree, a spider falls into his mouth and when Chinkoroheibei spits it out, the poor creature has lost some of his legs causing a turtle to laugh at the spider's misery. This inspires Chinkoroheibei to poke at the turtle, causing the turtle to bite Chinkoroheibei’s finger in order to escape. Incensed, Chinkoroheibei  runs after the turtle who leads him into the sea.

Underwater, Chinkoroheibei discovers the wondrous palace of the fish king. A big celebration is underway with the large fish king surrounded by cheering smaller fish with their unusual round black heads. Initially, Chinkoroheibei is not allowed into the party but he disguises himself as a fish and enters the palace. He watches as the fish king is presented with a box that the fish and crabs use to perform magic tricks in which bubbles are transformed into various sea creatures. Chinkoroheibei recognizes the box as the “legendary treasure box” and schemes to steal it away. A comical chase sequence ensues with Chinkoroheibei receiving his comeuppance in the end.

In addition to using the kind of slapstick comedy popular in both animated and live action cinema of the day, Ofuji also uses a visual device developed in the silent period: the iris. As zoom lenses were rarity in the 1930s, irises were used in order to focus attention on one part of the screen. In the case of cel animation, it removes the need to draw a new background in order to shoot a close up. A matte is placed over the existing image and gives a similar effect as a close up.

Examples of the use of irises and mattes in Chinkoroheibei.

Ofuji uses mattes (cutout frames) not just as irises but also cut into cloud shapes to focus attention on one part of the screen. Some of the mattes even appear to be made of patterned chiyogami. At first, I thought the cloud-shaped mattes may have been used for practical reasons – covering part of the frame in a matte reduces the amount of the screen that needed to be drawn and re-drawn on celluloid, an expensive commodity at the time. Ofuji may also have been saving time on certain scenes in order to have more time to work on more complex scenes like the celebration of the fish king and the dramatic final chase scene. But, then in one of the shots of the treasure box, some of the creatures that appear out of the bubbles swim away over the chiyogami matte, suggesting that Ofuji may just have used the mattes because they simply appealed to him aesthetically.

Chinkoroheibei resembles a kind of tailless mouse with small, round ears.  He bears a striking resemblance to Mickey Mouse. Japanese animators in the 1930s (and the next generation of animators and manga-ka who were just children at the time like Osamu Tezuka, Takashi Yanase, Yoichi Kotabe, Monkey Punch, and so on) were strongly influenced by the two of biggest names in animation of the time: Walt Disney and the Fleischer brothers. This stylistic influence can be seen not only in the character design, movement, and use of physical comedy in Chinkoroheibei and the Treasure Box, but also in other cel animation by Ofui and his peers.  Kon Ichikawa’s Shinsetsu Kachi Kachi Yama (1936), Yasuji Murata’s Private 2nd Class Norakuro (1934), and Mitsuyo Seo’s Sankichi the Monkey: The Storm Troopers (1934) are a few examples that I have seen.

Examples of complex animated sequences in Chinkoroheibei.

Ofuji uses the standard cel animation practice of using a stationary background with movement in the middle- and fore-ground. The character movement is smoother than in his cutout animation (see: The Village Festival or Song of Spring). Ofuji adds depth to the underwater scenes through the use of bubbles and swaying sea plants both in front of and behind the central action. The most impressive scene technically is the final chase scene. Water is notoriously difficult to animate and Ofuji does a stellar job of it considering the technical limitations of the time.

Chinkoroheibei and the Treasure Box  appears on the Zakka Films DVD The Roots of Japanese Anime with optional English subtitles. A striking image of Chinkoroheibei in profile is used on cover of and in promotional materials for the DVD.  The Roots of Japanese Anime comes with an informative booklet that includes historical background by Jasper Sharp (Midnight Eye) and film notes by Aaron Gerow (Yale U). Individuals can purchase this DVD for a reasonable price from independent film distributor Film Baby. Institutions should contact Zakka Films directly for purchasing information.

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2011

Nishikata Kids: Anna on My Neighbour Totoro

An interview with Anna
Age: 6 1/2

What is your favourite anime?
Totoro

What do you like about Totoro?
The cat-bus [nekobasu] and the little dust bunnies [makkuro-kurosuke].

If you could be a character in the film, which one would you be?
The big sister Satsuki because she looks after Mei and tries to cheer her up and Mei gives her hugs.

If you saw a Totoro in real life would you be scared or excited?
Excited because I would be on his belly and go to sleep like this [she curls up like a cat to demonstrate].

Where do Totoro live?
In a tree log where it’s sunny and pretty with beautiful flowers.

What is the funniest moment in the film?
When Mei sees the dust bunnies for the first time.
And when the bus cat is smiling like this [she makes a BIG GRIN].

What do you think will happen in the future for the family?
The Mommy will get better.

Are there any other anime that you like at the moment?
Lizard Planet. I like the big lizard on the planet. The other lizards are cool too.

Nishikata Kids: A Child's Perspective on Japanese Culture

TYRANNOSAUR

Comedic actors in dramatic roles have a new champion in Olivia Colman. In this feature-length debut from Paddy Considine, Colman plays Hannah, a charity shop worker, who befriends local thug Joseph (Peter Mullan) whilst living with the secret abusive violence of her husband James, played by Eddie Marsan. These regrettably familiar characters and the bonds they form anchor Considine’s film for the reliably impressive work of Mullan and Marsan, but it is Colman’s performance that rises beyond them, searing and breathtaking and nothing less than captivating in its course. In the spectrum of movies touching this subject matter, Iciar Bollain’s TE DOY MIS OJOS (TAKE MY EYES) may be a recent masterwork, yet TYRANNOSAUR remains a haunting achievement – the legacy of its landscape James and Hannah’s middle-class suburban house, neat and red-brick and home to the most deep and fearsome darkness.

TYRANNOSAUR played Sundance, where Paddy Considine won the Directing Award - World Cinema Dramatic, and Olivia Colman and Peter Mullan won the Special Jury Prize - Dramatic. It also played Toronto 2011. It is currently on release in the UK and Ireland. It opens on October 13th in Germany; on November 17th in Russia; on November 2th in Greece and on January 4th in Sweden.

Song of Spring (春の唄, 1931)

Noburo Ofuji (大藤 信郎, 1900-1961) is one of Japan’s top animation pioneers. His innovative chiyogami films represent some of the best in pre-Toei Doga animation. Cutouts were a common animation technique in the 1920s and 1930s because of their cost effectiveness. Not only was celluloid expensive because it needed to be imported, but cutouts can be used over and over again, reducing the more time-consuming manual labour of drawing individual frames for cel animation.

Song of Spring (春の唄/Haru no uta, 1931) demonstrates how Ofuji’s films stood out from those of his contemporaries because of his use of the unique textures and shapes of chiyogami. Originating in the Edo era, chiyogami is a brightly coloured type of paper traditionally printed using woodblocks. In Song of Spring, the use of chiyogami complements the aim of the film to teach children about national symbols (cherry blossoms, the hinomaru) and traditions (kimono costume, dancing and celebrating the arriving of spring).

Like his earlier work The Village Festival (村祭, 1930), Ofuji’s Song of Spring is a sing-along animated short aimed at a young audience. Instead of the “Follow the Bouncing Ball” technique which Ofuji used in The Village Festival, Song of Spring opens with a sheet of music onto which katakana appear one by one, spelling out the lyrics to the first verse.

The land of cherry blossoms

Sakura, Sakura

Flower blossoms blow in from east and west

Covering the asphalt here as well

My step turns wild amidst whirling cherry petals

The land of cherry blossoms

Sakura, Sakura

I think of you as spring bursts forth

A chandelier shining in my dreams

A bright kimono amidst the whirling cherry petals

The song, performed by Kikuko Inoue of the Asakusa Opera, is very catchy. While the song’s themes may be very Japanese, the song has a Western flavour to the performance style. I was reminded of patriotic music invoking nature from other countries like Flower of Scotland, Canada’s The Maple Leaf Forever, or Vera Lynn’s The White Cliffs of Dover. In fact, I would describe Inoue’s singing style as a kind of high-pitched Vera Lynn. In the DVD notes, Aaron Gerow mentions that the Asakusa Opera played an influential role in introducing Western music and musical theatre to Japan (p. 5).

The complexity of Ofuji’s cutout technique is apparent during the opening credits where he has movement happening in more than one part of the frame. Each section of the film is given its own scene. The first verse and its repeat are illustrated by the music score with lyrics and a cute sequence of dancing cherry blossoms with feet. During the instrumental bridge, Ofuji has designed a lovely sequence using cherry blossom shapes that move and develop like a kaleidoscope. The complexity of the animation increases throughout the film with the pièce de résistance being the lovely final sequence where a girl in kimono dances. The sophistication of movement as the girl mimics the whirling of the cherry blossoms is as expertly done as a Lotte Reiniger silhouette animation from the same time period.

The version of Song of Spring on the Zakka Films DVD is truly remarkable as a rare example of tinting in a pre-war Japanese film. Early cinema was not only black and white but quite often tinted either by soaking the film in dye in order to stain the film emulsion or hand tinted. Notable examples include Lotte Reiniger’s The Adventures of Prince Achmed (Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed, 1926) and the recently restored A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans la lune, 1902) by Georges Méliès, which premiered at Cannes in May and is screening at the BFI London Film Festival this month.

Certain colours in tinting were associated with different locations or times of day. An amber tint would be used for daylight interiors, for example, while a blue tint would suggest a moonlit night. . . or water as in the below image from The Adventures of Prince Achmed. Ofuji has gone with a pink tint in keeping with the cherry blossom theme of the song.

The opening title cards suggest that Ofuji shot the film on a Pathé Baby (パテ・ベイビー). The Pathé Baby film system used a unique 9.5mm film format introduced by Pathé Frères in 1922 and became quite popular in Europe in the 20s and 30s. The Pathé Baby did not record sound, so Song of Spring was designed to be played simultaneously with a Columbia Records phonograph record of the song. Not only does Columbia Records appear in the opening credits of the film, but the film ends on a shot of a Columbia Records phonograph record spinning amongst the cherry blossoms.

Song of Spring appears on the Zakka Films DVD The Roots of Japanese Anime with optional English subtitles. The DVD comes with an informative booklet that includes historical background by Jasper Sharp (Midnight Eye) and film notes by Aaron Gerow (Yale U). Individuals can purchase this DVD for a reasonable price from independent film distributor Film Baby. Institutions should contact Zakka Films directly for purchasing information.

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2011

Jours d'Hiver: The French release of Kihachiro Kawamoto's Winter Days (2003)

The strong cultural ties between France and Japan means that many treasures of Japanese cinema and animation unavailable elsewhere can be found on DVD in France. Living in Europe it’s a great alternative to ordering DVDs from Japan as the prices are more reasonable than overpriced Japanese DVDs and one doesn’t need to worry about customs.

Some recent treasures that I have picked up from France include Naomi Kawase’s Shara (沙羅双樹, 2003) and The Mourning Forest (La Forêt de Mogari/殯の森, 2007). I am very excited about indie label Choses Vues picking up Shohei Imamura’s classic A Man Vanishes (L'Evaporation de l'homme/人間蒸発, 1967) for release this coming December.

This week I got my paws on the 2008 les films du paradoxe release of Winter Days (Jours d'Hiver/冬の日, 2003), a collaborative animation adaptation of a renku poem that I reviewed for Midnight Eye in 2008. It was a bittersweet experience re-watching the film and its "Making Of" footage as three of the animators, project coordinator Kihachiro Kawamoto, Prof. Masahiro Katayama, and Reiko Okuyama have passed away since the film was first released.

Apart from Jours d’Hiver the only other foreign DVD release of the film that I know of is in Korea. There were two DVD versions released in Japan – neither of which have subtitles. I have the slim line version which features "Making Of" extras and a collection of 8 postcard-sized illustrations and storyboards by Yuri Norstein and Kawamoto. There is also an insanely priced complete box set containing the film DVD plus 8 additional "Making Of" DVDs for a total of 945 minutes for hard core animation fans. Rumour has it that the box set footage is poorly shot and edited.  This knowledge, combined with prohibitive price, means that I will wait to check it out in a film library the next time I make a research trip to Japan.

Renku Animation "Fuyu no Hi"

1 disc + 8 illustrations/storyboards for 6,800 yen

Renku Animation "Fuyu no Hi" Kanzen Ban Box

9 disc boxset for 36,000 yen

The French DVD is very similar in content to the slim line Japanese release with the film in its entirety and the "Making Of" doc. With their cover art les films du paradoxe have clearly chosen to highlight Kawamoto’s role as organizer of the collaborative film using the cheerful image of Kawamoto’s Bashō puppet with his arm outstretched in friendly invitation. The cover also highlights the names of 9 of the most well known directors in Europe: Yuri Norstein, Aleksandr Petrov, Břetislav Pojar, Isao Takahata, Co Hoedeman, Raoul Servais, Mark Baker, Jacques Drouin, and Koji Yamamura.

The renku poem has been translated into French by the documentary filmmaker Catherine Cadou. Cadou is best known to fans of Japanese cinema for her work as an interpreter and assistant for Akira Kurosawa in his later years. Her documentary Kurosawa’s Way (Kurosawa, la voie, 2011) showed at Cannes to much acclaim in the spring and will be screened at TIFF Tokyo later this month (learn more about this doc at Wildgrounds).

Catherine Cadou’s translation of Winter Days is narrated by a series of voices over the Japanese title cards that appear at the beginning of each short, mimicking the style of the original Japanese voice track. The full French text also appears in the beautiful accompanying booklet (in lieu of the 8 illustrations/storyboards in the JP edition) with each stanza illustrated with full colour stills from its corresponding animated short. The booklet also contains short profiles of all the animation directors and an interview that Julien Bastide did with Kihachiro Kawamoto about the project for AnimeLand back in 2003 when the film had its premiere in France. The interview provides insights into how the project was conceived and how Kawamoto exerted creative control over the project. For example, I learned that in addition to Norstein receiving the honour of going first, that Kawamoto considered the stanzas written by Bashō himself (1st, 8th, 11th, 18th, 21st, 28th, and 31st) to be the most important. He divided the remaining six Bashō stanzas equally between Japanese (Furukawa/Okuyama and Kotabe/Takahata) and non-Japanese animators (Servais/Pojar/Baker) reserving the one he felt was the most challenging of these for the capable direction of Isao Takahata.

In my earlier screenings of Winter Days, I had not noticed that the composer for the film was Shinichiro Ikebe (池辺 晋一郎, b. 1943). Ikebe is a highly sought after composer having written the scores for many acclaimed films by  Kurosawa (Kagemusha, Madadayo, Dreams, Rhapsody in August). Other notable film scores by Ikebe include Imamura’s Vengeance is Mine (1979), The Ballad of Narayama (1983) and Warm Water Under a Red Bridge (2001), MacArthur's Children (Masahiro Shinoda, 1984), and the Future Boy Conan animation series (Hayao Miyazaki, 1978).

My only criticism of the French release of Winter Days is the fact that they have removed the Japanese voice track entirely. It would have been much more satisfying to have the option of watching the film in its original version with French subs. As I already have the original version it does not affect me personally, but animation collectors who do not speak French should take this into consideration. The "Making Of" documentary is subtitled not dubbed – several of the 17 animators featured in this footage speak French (Drouin, Servais, Hoedeman) and are not subtitled.

I personally delighted in Cadou’s interpretation of the renku as it gave me a fresh perspective on the poem itself as well as the animation adaptations.  It seems a shame that the film has never been picked up for English release given the prestige of the many animators who contributed to this unique project.