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 Hirano based 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 kappa and 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)

Takashi Iitsuka’s Super Organic Battle Action Adventure

The young filmmaker Takashi Iitsuka (飯塚貴士, b. 1985) wowed Nippon Connection 2012 with the international premiere of his short film Encounters (エンカウンターズ, 2011).  The half hour action adventure action figure drama has previously screened at festivals in Japan such as the Sendai Short Film Festival and the Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival.

Encounters uses neither stop motion animation nor any CG effects.  It is purely old school live action puppet action – a technique which Iizuka has christened “Super Organic Battle Action.”  Using handmade action figures and monster puppets, Iizuka carefully manipulates the characters either by hand or fishing wire.  The result is a loving send up of the great monster movies of Ishirō Honda (Godzilla, King Kong vs. Godzilla, Mothra vs. Godzilla).  The campiness of the film and the use of marionette effects recalls the “supermarionation” techniques employed in the UK cult classic Thunderbirds (Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, 1965-6).

The story centers on two buddies, Max and John, who have taken a trip to the countryside to help Max get his mind off his girlfriend troubles. Just as the countryside and a chance encounter with a friendly stray dog named Kifune seem to be lifting Max’s spirits, a furry super-monster crashes into the scene and has a confrontation with some armed forces.  The story then spirals into a pastiche plot line that throws in all the elements typical in a Japanese scifi action adventure: a mad scientist, fear of robots, love and friendship conquering all, and so on.

Talking to Iitsuka at Nippon Connection, I discovered that he did indeed play alone with action figures a lot as a kid.  He was an only child and did not have the means to buy too many toys.  He had a hero figure in Ultraman but lacked monsters – a problem he remedied by creating his own monsters using PET bottles.  His aim with Encounters was to transfer the fun and spontaneity of such child’s play into the film. 

His eyes lit up with delight when I mentioned the Thunderbirds and he added that he was also a big fan of Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons (1967-8), a dark scifi “supermarionation” also by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson.  In terms of action films, in addition to being inspired by the Ultraman franchise, Iitsuka is also a big fan of The Delta Force movies starring Chuck Norris and Lee Marvin.  This would explain his choice of Waffen Film Studio for the name of his one man production company.  “Waffen” is German for “weapons”. 

All levels of production were done by Iizuka himself: cinematography, editing, sound, music, set building, costumes and special effects.  He made about 5 or 6 sets and manipulated the figures either marionette-style using fishing wire (which you can cheesily still see in some frames) or by hand (but without the hands being seen).  For one sequence, for example, he built the set on top of the bathtub so that he could manipulate the figures from underneath.  Some of the figures and sets were made using materials that he already had but others were built with supplies from the hobby shop.  Some of the most interesting designs were done using papercraft and based on photographs Iitsuka took himself. 

Iitsuka even does all the voices including a falsetto for Max’s girlfriend in a flashback sequence.  The subtitles are kind of odd – at times very inspired – as when a wordy curse in Japanese is translated to English simply as “Jesus!”  At other times the English subs are awkward and badly spelled  –  but that just adds to the fun. The subtitles, which were done by Naoki Suzuki of the Sendai Short Film Festival, complement the kitschiness of the film and the quirkiness of the Japanese dialogue.   Iitsuka designed the dialogue as a spoof of the unusual Japanese dub s done on Hanna-Barbera cartoons like Shazzan (1967-9) and The Fantastic Four (1967-9) when they were first imported to Japan.

See opening to Japanese dub of Shazzan here, and The Fantastic Four here:

The film was shot on a Sony Video Z5J and edited using Abobe Software, Premiere, Aftereffects, etc.  Iitsuka told me that he hopes that people will get a message of hope from the film.  He is working on his next Super Organic Battle Action Adventure and was planning to explore German hobby shops for materials after the festival.  An art school grad, Iitsuka has a natural eye for framing - doubtless honed by years of TV watching.  The concept could easily have turned out completely schlocky, but I found the result brilliant.  I hope that Iitsuka’s Encounters obtains the cult following that it deserves, and I look forward to seeing where his imagination takes him to next.  

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2012

You can follow Iitsuka on Twitter (JP only)
A 20 minute cut of the film is available on imdb (JP/EN)