Anthology with Cranes (鶴下絵和歌巻, 2011)

One of the highlights of Kōji Yamamura’s Retrospective at Nippon Connection 2014 was the rare opportunity to see his short-short animation Anthology with Cranes (鶴下絵和歌巻/Tsuru shitae waka kan, 2011).  During our Filmmaker’s Talk, I learned that Yamamura did not come up with the concept for this piece.  It was commissioned by a television series in which the producers were looking for artists to make works inspired by famous pieces of art.   Although the initial concept was not his own, Yamamura told us that he enjoyed the project very much.

The inspiration for this film is the celebrated early Edo period (17^th century) scroll painting of the same name, Anthology with Cranes (鶴下絵和歌巻/Tsuru shitae waka kan).  The hand scroll has been designated an Important Cultural Property of Japan ((重要文化財 / Jūyō Bunkazai) and can be found in the Kyoto National Museum.  An online scrollable version of the work with a description can be found on their website Kyohaku.

The scroll is 34 cm tall and 1,356 cm wide and features fine calligraphy by Honami Kōetsu (本阿弥 光悦, 1558-1637), with decorative paintings Tawaraya Sōtatsu (俵屋 宗達, c. early 17^th century, active as a painter 1602-35).  The motif of cranes is painted in silver and gold behind the calligraphy.  The slender forms of these graceful birds are delicately depicted in a variety of poses from standing to flying. 

Order: Isao Takahata's 12th Century Animation

In our chat, Yamamura said that it was not always clear in what direction the birds are moving, so he had to rely upon his own instincts in his interpretation of this experimental work.  Instead of silver and gold paint he has used watercolour.  The camera mimics the gaze of the reader of the scroll by “tracking” slowly from right to left (in the direction in which one would read a scroll in Japanese).  While screening the film, I was reminded of animation director Isao Takahata’s art book 12^th Century Animation (十二世紀のアニメーション―, 1999), in which suggests that ancient scrolls are the ancestors of contemporary manga and anime.    

Yamamura’s interpretation of this elegant scroll is beautiful and entrancing.  The added touch of the natural sounds of cranes and lapping water recall the shallow bays where cranes might be found looking for food.  My only criticism was that the commission called for such a short film, for I could have watched it for many minutes more.

Support this artist by buying his work: Kafka Inaka Isha

HD / 2011 /Japan / 1’55”/ Colour

Direction, Animation and Painting

Koji Yamamura

Inbetweening

Koji Yamamura, Ayaka Nakata, Miki Tanaka

Assistant

Sanae Yamamura

Sound Design

Koji Kasamatsu

Sound Mix

Kenji Saito

Thanks to

Erika Hashiguchi, Chiyoda Raft

Production Company

Yamamura Animation

review by: Catherine Munroe Hotes 2014 

This work screened at Nippon Connection 2014 #nc14 :

The Portrait Studio (寫眞館, 2013)

It is rare that an animated film moves me to tears, but Takashi Nakamura’s tender depiction of the passage of time during one of Japan’s most turbulent eras in The Portrait Studio (寫眞館 / Shashinkan, 2013) truly left me reaching for a handful of tissues.  This 18-minute short tells two stories: one of the relationship between a photographer and one of his subjects and, intertwined with it, a visual tale of the modernization of Japan. 

It begins amongst the lush greenness of Meiji Japan (the late 19^th century), when photography was in its infancy.  A rickshaw brings a newly married couple across a spring meadow to the foot of a hill.  The man is dressed in a military uniform and the woman in an elegant European-style gown with a large hat.   They ascend a stone staircase to a lovely European-style wooden house that is home to the Hinomaru Portrait Studio.  The woman sits for her portrait but is too shy to raise her face to the camera, so the friendly photographer picks a bouquet of flowers for her.  His intuition proves correct, for the woman raises her head smiling and the photographer successfully catches the woman’s smile on film.

Thus begins the relationship between the photographer and this family.  Time passes, and the woman brings her infant daughter for a photograph.  The woman has lost her shyness in front of the camera but the baby startles the photographer with the angry expression on her face.  The photographer does his best to cajole the baby girl into smiling but it is all in vain.  As the baby grows up into girlhood and then womanhood, she comes back again and again for portraits of herself, her students, and her son, but she never smiles.  Despite this, a bond grows between subject and photographer and Nakamura creates suspense in us as spectators as we watch with growing anticipation to see if the woman will finally relent and smile for the camera.   

It is a moving tale that explores how photographs in the modern era have become such an important part of how we remember both our personal and collective histories.  I was reminded of something the renowned American photojournalist Dorothea Lange (1895-1965) – who lived during the same period and is famous for her photographs of the Depression and of the WWII Japanese relocation centres – once said: “Photography takes an instant out of time, altering it by holding it still.”

Photographs are reminders of happy times that have passed, and the bonds of friendship between the photographer and his subjects – the central character in this film is really a symbol of the whole community – remain steadfast in the face of a rapidly changing landscape.  Shot in glorious widescreen (21:9), Nakamura – who wrote, directed, and did the key animation for this labour of love – depicts the dramatic changes that happened in Tokyo and environs during this period from the Edo times through the devastation of the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923, the rise of nationalism in Japan, the second devastation of Tokyo due to American bombing, and into the modern trains and buildings of the immediate post-war era.  The film has no dialogue, with additional aural context provided by special effects (incidental noise) the lovely classical piano score composed by Jun Ichikawa.  This animated short is a visual delight with each frame a piece of art in its own right. 

CREW

Direction, Story, Key Animation:

Takashi Nakamura

Art Director:

Shinji Kimura

Animation Check:

Mitsunori Murata

Colour Designer:

Terumi Nakauchi

Director of Photography:

Mitsuhiro Satō

CGI Director:

Daisuke Oyabu

Music:

Jun Ichikawa

Sound Director, Sound Producer:

Yoshikazu Iwanami

Sound Effects:

Yasumasa Koyama

Sound Mixer:

Takayuki Yamaguchi

Production Company:

Studio Colorido

Takashi Nakamura (中村たかし, b. 1955) is a seasoned Japanese animator and director from Yamaguchi.  He began his career in animation as an inbetweener in 1974, and his debut work as an animation director on Golden Warrior Gold Lightan (黄金戦士ゴールド・ライタ, 1981-2) was influential to many of his peers including Kōji Morimoto.  More recently, his anime feature A Tree of Palme (パルムの樹, 2002) made the official selection at the Berlinale.  Nakamura is a founding member of the Japan Animation Creators Association (JAniCA) labour group. 

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2014

I saw this film at Nippon Connection 2014 #nc14

Antonym (螺旋銀河, 2014)

On Sunday night, Natsuka Kusano won the Nippon Visions Jury Award at Nippon Connection 2014 for her debut feature Antonym (螺旋銀河/Rasen Ginga, 2014).  This is high praise indeed for the international jury consisted of Alex Zahlten, assistant professor at the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard, Alex Oost, director of the Camera Japan Festival (October 1-5 in Rotterdam, 10-12 in Amsterdam),  and Japan Times film critic Mark Schilling. 

antonym/アントニム (noun): word that means the opposite of another word

People often say that opposites attract, and this seems to be the case for Sachiko Fukada (Asami Shibuya/twitter), an office worker who becomes transfixed by a beautiful fellow employee, Aya Sawai (Yuri Ishizaka), who she encounters in a staff washroom.  The two women appear to be the complete opposites of one another.  Shy Sachiko is plain and unadorned.  Even when not wearing her dull office uniform, she dresses in nondescript clothing.  In contrast, Aya wears a bright red jacket and takes a great deal of care with her appearance, touching up her make-up in the washroom mirror and wearing her hair long.  She exudes the kind of haughtiness one associates with the cliquey “cool” girls in high school.

However, appearance can be deceiving.  While Aya may appear confident in herself, she is actually masking a lot of insecurities.  Her night class writing teacher calls her out on it when he selects her radio drama “antonym” to be produced for air.  Rather than complimenting her on her writing, he tells her that the script is terrible and accuses her of seeing the world with blinkers on: “You think the world is yours, don’t you?  You only think of yourself.  No others exist.”  He wants to pair her up with a co-writer to teach her a lesson, but she digs in her heels at the thought of losing complete control over her work.  She lies and says she has a manga-ka friend who can help her, and her teacher calls her bluff, insisting she bring this friend to their next chat. 

Desperate to have her radio drama produced, Aya decides to use her new acquaitance, Sachiko, to deceive her writing teacher.  She asks Sachiko to pretend to be her manga-ka friend, thinking that she can manipulate the situation, but Sachiko is not as meek and simple as she outwardly seems.  The conflicting options and behaviour of the two women concerning the script and their relationship to one another triggers the façades they both hide behind to crumble, revealing that they may have more in common than they realize.

First time feature filmmaker Natsuka Kusano, has constructed a carefully considered narrative that puts a magnifying glass on relationships between women. Although the film is set in Osaka, thanks to a grant by the Cineastes Osaka Project CO2 (see: OAFF2014), it really could be set in any urban environment.  The film captures the loneliness of modern life against the cold lights of the city.  Most poignant is the scene in which Sachiko sits alone in the coin laundry staring at the washing machine as it cleans the shirt lent to her by Aya.  It’s a cool reminder that many of us spend more time conversing with machines than we do with other human beings. 

The climax of the film is very unusual in its stillness.  We witness Aya and Sachiko performing the radio drama in the studio.  In this minimalist environment we are obliged to concentrate on the words the women are saying and the feeling they instil in their words: “I want to be the same like you.  Even the faults, scars, pains, madness.  If there is a big hole on your body, I want to make the same [-sized] hole on the same place [on] my body.”  It is an inward looking film that delves deep into the conflicting emotions of envy, love, desire, ambition, and self-loathing that many people are confronted with daily. 

Natsuka Kusano (草野なつか, b. 1985) is from Yamato, Kanagawa Prefecture.  During her Creative Writing studies at Tokai University, Kusano took a class by film critic Sadao Yamane which kindled her interest in film.  Upon graduation, she studied filmmaking at the Film School of Tokyo, and participated in some independent films as production manager and other positions.  Antonym is her first feature film and was made possible by a grant by the Cineastes Osaka Project CO2 (see: OAFF2014).  Kusano is currently based in Tokyo.

CAST

Yuri Ishizaka

Asami Shibuya

Tetsu Onji

Seitaro Ishibashi

Kuniaki Nakamura

CREW

Director: Natsuka Kusano

Screenplay: Tomoyuki Takahashi, Natsuka Kusano

Cinematographer: Yoshihiro Okayama

Sound: Mikisuke Shimadzu

Music: Hiroshi Ueno

2014 Catherine Munroe Hotes