If you trust in my taste, then press the play button of the YouTube video below and be prepared for a most disturbing yet thought-provoking animated short film. (Adult content, not recommended for children.)
Great are the forces of nature indeed.
So what do you folks make of it? Discussion with spoilers after the jump:
Continue reading "Animated Short Film: 'INSTINCT' directed by Frederick Venet" »
Breaking news! Some of you may remember my earlier posts on Kato Kunio's The Diary of Tortov Roddle as well as on The Apple Incident and Fantasy. I just found out a day late from Asahi Shinbun that his latest work, Tsuki no Ie つみきのいえ (which is translated as La maison en petits cubes in French) won the Annecy Cristal as well as the Junior Jury Award for Short Film at the Annecy (widely regarded as 'the Cannes of animation films'). This is the second time a Japanese director won this honour of the Annecy Cristal since Yamamura Koji's Atamayama. Below is a description of Tsuki no Ie from Annecy's website:
It is difficult to keep the house made of blocks out of the water [sic]. The grandfather who has lived in it has been constantly adding to it as the water level rises. This is the story about his family memories.
Looking at the credits list, this would seem to be primarily a one-man show on the part of Director Kato. The work is 12-minute long. Unfortunately, I cannot find any images of this work except that tiny picture at the Annecy website.
The Diary of Tortov Roddle is just one of those works that I love animation for (see my image gallery here). I am counting the hour till I get to see Tsuki no Ie.
From what I learned on the internet, it seems that Shishido Kojiro works pretty much like the early Shinkai Makoto 新海誠 - that is to say, he does his animation and music all on his own. A few works have come out of his hand so far, among them:
sound / phantasma / mirror (かがみのげんおん)
You can watch it on YouTube here. The work is impressionistic as opposed to a story per se, though I must say I have a hard time figuring out what it is being impressionistic about. (Does any of you have any idea?)
nakedyouth
You can watch it on YouTube here. This one is has more of a story, though it is still highly impressionistic in its narration. I suppose that is a way to work around the constrains of an independent anime (ie. no voice actors to act out the dialogue). Be warned of heavy-handed homoerotic tones.
There are also other more minor works such as Sweet Sweet Virgin (be warned of pornographic content and spades of psychological weirdness), Collapse Zen, Superfluid, Deep Sea Tentacle, Drawing!! and Seaweed Buildings.
I can't say what I see of his works is my cup of tea, although I do acknowledge creativity that dares to be different.
Further to my earlier post on Phil Mulloy's animation short series Intolerance, I would like to introduce two other animation of his called The Chain and The Ten Commandments:
The Chain
This is what I made of the plot: A spill of ink on a piece of paper is mistaken for a genuine treasure map through a series of misunderstandings, and people go to war to fight over the treasure map. Finally, one group wins and sets for sail to the place where the treasure is said to be buried...
This 10-minute short is probably as great as pacifist propaganda can get. It is seriously nightmarish in tone and leaves little room for the wonderful deadpan humour of Phil Mulloy (somewhat to my regret).
The Ten Commandments
This is a series of animation shorts of approximately 5 minutes each, all of which are travesties of the biblical ten commandments. The series is classic Phil Mulloy in terms of the acerbic cynicism, violence, deadpan humour and grotesque sexuality.
My favorite is the tenth one entitled Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbour's Wife. In it, Sally, a married woman who is usually attached to her dog, is stalked by her neighbour Bud, who is secretly attracted to her. He becomes jealous of the dog and decides to kidnap the dog in order to kill it. However, instead of killing the dog, he kills the Prime Minister instead by accident. He then trains the dog to act like a human being - to greet people with words and to stand upright etc. He returns the dog to Sally. She is so delighted with the newly trained dog to the extent of taking it to bed at night and having sex with it right next to her sleeping husband. In the meantime, the manhunt for the Prime Minister's murderer begins, and the dog is mistaken by the police for Bud...
The series as a whole may not be as hilarious as Intolerance, but like Intolerance it belongs to a category of comedy which I call 'bitter comedy'. You may laugh, but your laugh leaves a bitter taste about humanity at large.
I heartily beseech you to seek out the animation of Phil Mulloy (or at least those of you who are over the legal age to view 'mature subject matter').
Chuumon no Ooi Ryouriten / 注文の多い料理店 (1993)
The story (which is based on one of Miyazawa Kenji's short stories for children) is simple: Two men hunting for game in the forest stray into a restaurant, where they find out that they are the game of some mysterious creatures. The picturesque art direction is very pleasing - every frame feels like a picture from a well-illustrated children's book.
According to Wikipedia, Okamoto Tadanari (岡本忠成) was the director of this animation short, but died before he could finish it. Kawamoto Kihacirou (川本喜八郎) stepped in to have it completed. That explains the artistic uniqueness of this animation short. Unfortunately, these two creators are not very well-known inside or outside Japan.
I really ought to set up a picture gallery for this wonderful work.
Spring and Chaos / イーハトーブ幻想 KENjIの春 (1996)
This is essentially the biography of Miyazawa Kenji told in animation. To me, the real meat of this animation film is in two psychedelic sequences - one when he is writing and the other when he is dying.
The sceneries of the natural landscape of the countryside are also pleasant to look at, and yet there is a sense of yearning throughout the film that he really ought to be in a better place than this. This film also does well to illustrate how his blend of idealism brushes painfully against reality. For example, there is a scene where he gazes on farmers working in field and hears a baby crying in the distance, and (to me) this is evocative of the Old Testament curse of Adam having to till the soil and Eve having to bear children after their Fall.
Apparently, this was directed by Kawamori Shouji (河森正治), who has always struck me as a more 'commercial' director (he is now directing Macross F this season). This was a bit of a surprise.
The premise of the story is interesting: A man, living in rather modest room overlooking a rather depressing industrial landscape, is about to go on a date with the woman of his dreams tonight. However, he does not have a head and he decides to buy a head for this very special date...
The allegory of the story does not go amiss - the protagonist is symbolic of Everyman in modern times. He is but a interchangeable unit of labour in his social/economic environment. He is faceless to himself and to the world at large. To bestow 'individuality' on himself, he goes to a shop to splurge on a head (ie. 'finding his identity' through consumerism). He tries on different heads, and at the end finds the answer to his facelessness.
What touched me in particular was the sharp contrast of images of
dehumanizing industrialization (ie. things that make life depressing)
against images of finery and romance (ie. things that make life worth
living) - especially in the sequence where a red silk handkerchief
falls from a hideous industrial complex. There is just something
expressive of the meager human hope to pursuit happiness in the face of
social/economic factors beyond his control in that sequence.
Another strength of this animation short is the depiction of the nervousness and exhilaration the protagonist feels prior to the date - something that is rather odd and ennobling in these permissive times. The modern dating game too is about interchangeable human units - you are just more faceless to others than you would like to believe.
I heartily recommend this.
The details on this anime are rather scant at the moment, though we do know that the director is Sugii Gisaburo (杉井ギサブロー), who has an interesting track record as:
Both Kanashimi no Belladoona and Tale of Genji are masterpieces that no one ever seems to know anything about. And I also noticed that he directed another adaptation of Miyazawa's short story in Night on the Galactic Railroad (1985).
For the record, I have a feeling that Biography of Gusukoobutori is likely to become yet another masterpiece that no one ever seems to know anything about.
(Source: ttp://www.animate.tv/nf/detail.php?id=0000002724)
I just received an email from Jordan S., a regular commentator of this blog that:
1) In the UK, there is a programme of Kawamoto Kihachirou's films and other stop-motion currently showing in Bristol, which will proceed to tour to a few other cities in the country. See here for all the info and images on this.
2) On 22 April 2008, two DVDs of Kawamoto's work (a collection of short films and the feature Shisha no Sho) will be released on region 1 DVD in the USA. Here is catsuka.com's info in this regard and below is the trailer:
Too bad I don't live in the UK or the US. But those of you who do, you may wish to check this out. I for one am a bit surprised that Shisha no Sho is voice-acted by quite a number of renowned Japanese actors and actresses like Miyazawa Rie - she is an extremely picky actress these days, so there must be something Very Special about this piece.
You can find out more about Kawabata at Jordan's website here.
Intolerance is an ingenious and wacky series of animation shorts. I appreciate the art direction, the black humour and the originality of the concept behind the series:
An alien race is discovered far out in space. The alien race resembles mankind physically except their sexual organs are located where our heads are and their heads are located where our sexual organs are. The habits of life and ideas of sexuality are the opposite of ours. In addition, they believe that they, too, are made from the image of God. The two races decide that the universe is too small for them to co-exist and send out fleets of warships to annihilate each other...
You can see the first two parts of the series here and here on Youku.
So I learned about this upcoming Russian animation called Fedot the Shooter from Twitch. The details of the interior somehow remind me of... Mononoke, though I can't say that I am overall sold on this from what I see from the trailer above yet. It just... does not seem to have the alchemical magic you see in animation from, say, the Russian master Ivan Maximov. You can check out the company's website here.
I am guessing that it is based on a story written by Leonid Filatov and there has already been an earlier cinematic adaptation in 2002.
So I ran into this 10-minute video clip of Lavatory Lovestory on the Chinese video site Youku. The premise of the story is quite interesting. An unassuming lavatory lady of a men's washroom (the kind you have to pay to get in) dreams of being in love. She sees many men pass her by everyday and one day she finds flowers in her money jar. She puzzles over who her secret admirer may be...
It's quite an interesting and unique piece. I like the simple black and white which is set in contrast against the colours of the flowers the lavatory lady receives - it's an effective graphical representation of the idea that love enlivens the monotony of life. Do please check it out if you have time.
Coming from Twitch:
Good news for global animation fans here. The Hollywood Reporter has got news that IFC have picked up rights to French animated omnibus Fear(s) of the Dark and will be bringing it to North American shores. No word on a release date yet but it appears that this is coming out via the main IFC label - which means theatrical release - as opposed to one of their straight to video or VOD imprints. I personally felt that the film made the mistake of ending with the weakest segment of the lot but it’s pretty remarkable stuff nonetheless and the Charles Burns directed sequence is easily worth the cost of admission all on its own.
If you live in Montreal, do spare time to check out La Cinémathèque Québecoise's current programme of vintage Japanese anime 1924 to 1952. Here are a few that caught my eye:
So I ran into this news of an animated film recreating the Trial of "Chicago 10" in my RSS feed of the Wall Street Journal law blog (out of all places). The film recreates the conspiracy trial that followed the riots surrounding the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. As much as I am keen on seeking out animation that takes on a political subject, my reaction after reading the reviews and looking at the pictures is... 'meh'.
On the whole, this seems to be something with neither intellectual stimulus nor aesthetic sensibility that would make me a captive audience. However, this may be of interest to others and that is why I am posting about it here.
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