冬の日/ Fuyu no Hi/ Winter Days

The idea behind Fuyu no Hi is a very clever one, and it is one of two things that draw an arthouse audience to this short animated film – to see how that concept can be executed. The other is, of course, the big names involved, bringing together some giants of worldwide animation.

In 1684, history’s most prominent writer of Haiku, Bashou, put together a collection of poems called Fuyu no Hi. One of the poems was a renka, a collaborative work: in this case, six poets took turns to write single lines, each relating to the one before in sometimes extremely subtle ways. To reflect this, Fuyu no Hi’s director (actually working more as a producer, I would assume), the puppeteer Kawamoto Kihachirou, assembled 35 animators, each to take a stanza and make a short clip of animation based upon it. Kawamoto himself alone produces two segments.

The real draw for me was Yuri Norstein, this being his first true release since Tale of Tales. It is clear that he is held in extremely high regard here, not only with the longest segment, but opening the piece and, apparently, noted as a ‘special guest’. And it must be said that his presence is the focal point of the whole, not only providing the best of the animations, an uncharacteristically sprightly and coherent 110 seconds, but his wolf and hedgehog characters also appearing later in another animator’s piece – albeit one about a ‘spiteful’ arrow. It also means that early on, a high standard is set that unfortunately is not met by the majority of the animators who follow.

While the variations of tone are part of what make a renka what it is, and it is perfectly correct to feature funnier animations alongside more serious efforts, too often these are incongruous and seem to have little to do with their source. On the other hand several contributors, including most of the non-Japanese animators, try to follow the lines of the poem so literally it becomes unintentionally hilarious.

It’s very difficult to pitch. Too vague or experimental and there seems to be no emotional link with the source. Even Takahata Isao, my preferred Ghibli lead director and extremely capable animator, does not manage to hit the right notes. Too simplistic and there is little impact at all, which surprising affected Yamamura Kouji, who directed the ultra-weird Franz Kafka’s A Country Doctor. And trying to subvert the poeticism with simplicity or puerile humour…well, that’s what made the UK’s contribution something of an embarrassment.

Just once or twice, this compilation, this mash-up, this mix-tape is note-perfect. But I have to wonder what, given more thought, more time, more communication and more emphasis on the original poetry, this could have been.

カフカ 田舎医者/ Kafuka Inaka Isha / Franz Kakfa’s A Country Doctor

Much as I love anime, when one thinks of arthouse, it is not where the mind first turns. Anime may have outgrown its eighties clichés of ultraviolence, big-boobed airheads getting molested by tentacles and plotlines with little more to them than good guys and bad guys have a scrap, but while modern anime is more sophisticated, little of it appeals to international arthouse crowds. Osamu Tezuka’s experiments are long in the past, and seldom revisited. Today’s anime is dominated by cutesy comedies, fantasy action series and a few shows which aim for realism. Arguably some of SHAFT’s stranger work has a heavy arthouse influence, Takahata’s work with Studio Ghibli has an artistic angle that balances Miyazaki’s populism, and some of the releases from Madhouse and Studio 4˚C have certainly been exceptional, from Mind Game to Tekkon Kinkreet, but these are recent examples, and that they stand out so much is indicative of how little they represent the immense anime industry.

But anime, especially in 2010, is getting to be as broad as cinema in general. While the minds of those who think of arthouse animation may still go first to Yuri Norstein or the Zagreb School, arthouse anime is still being made. And here is a rather unsettling, grotesquely beautiful example, directed and seemingly almost wholly realised by Yamamura Koji. A Country Doctor is a pretty direct attempt to render Franz Kakfa’s weird short story of the same name in visual terms. Thus, the hallucinogenic and Protean way the narrative weaves about and hints at political commentary comes through as a strange, scratchy and almost monochrome animation in which characters and objects swell and change and move without weight, but remain recognisable and can interact with one another, while overlaid filters shift and blend, giving a scratchy overall texture not too distant from Norstein’s work. At times the delivery seems juvenile: choral delivery of narrative in spooky, flat voices immediately brings student theatre to mind, for example. However, as a whole the mood is unsettling, iconic and grotesque and suits the strange story well.

Of course, the question of the validity of Kafka’s narrative, which quite probably means nothing at all in conventionally storytelling terms and is instead a series of emotional expressions, is a debate far too large for this page, but this anime at only 20 minutes long can bewilder, disturb and to a degree amuse without becoming tedious.

Never to be a popular hit, nor to be of much note in any history of Japanese animation, it is nonetheless an award-winning animation worthy of attention and interest. Unfortunately, at least in the West, those who would be impressed generally steer clear of anime as lowbrow, while those who adore anime are more ‘in it for the pretty’ and would be baffled and irritated by something like this. Ah well. In my view, that is their loss.