Some of the most beautiful early
anime from Japan are the silhouette animations of Noburo Ofuji (大藤 信郎, 1900-61) and Wagoro Arai (荒井和五郎, 1907-94). Inspired by the films of Lotte Reiniger –
whose pre-war films were shown extensively in Japan (Donald Richie, A Hundred Years of Japanese Film, p.247) – and drawing on the Japanese traditions of
shadow plays and 19th century utsushi-e (写し絵 / magic
lantern shows), Ofuji and Arai created some of the most beautiful silhouette
films of the 20th century.
In his later years, Ofuji became
interested in Buddhist and ocean themes. The animator Kōji
Yamamura cites
the themes of death, eros, and the human ego as examples (Shirarezaru Animation). Ofuji's artistic masterpiece Kujira
(くじら/ Whale, 1952) is
one such film. Like Kihachiro Kawamoto’s
puppet films, which share Ofuji’s interest in Buddhist themes, Kujira features
the themes of female suffering, natural phenomena that allude to Buddhist
themes, and transformation.
Ofuji first made Kujira (鯨/Whale) in 1927 as a silent black and white film. Inspired by the possibilities of colour film,
he remade the film in the early 1950s using not only shadow puppets (silhouettes)
but also cutouts of transparent coloured cellophane (影絵とセロファン切り絵). The cutouts were assembled on a multi-plane
animation table. The backlighting of the
animation table used in combination with the transparent cellophane allowed Ofuji
to create highly complex layering of forms. It is a breathtaking experience to watch and
has beautifully rendered movement and transitions.
This 8 minute short opens with foreboding
music that foreshadows the dark and mysterious events to unfold. The story begins with the creak of a mast
being raised on an ancient sailing ship.
Seagulls fly overhead as the ship navigates calm seas. Aboard the vessel, men clap and guffaw and
women's voices ring with laughter as geisha entertain the men with music and
dancing.
Ofuji dissolves between camera shots
of varying shot compositions which, combined with the ghostly layering of
transparent waves and clouds, give the film a dream-like quality. A storm descends upon the ship. The wooden ship creaks and groans as the sea
violently tosses it about. A
giant tail of a whale emerges from the ocean and the whale seems to be
following the ship as if in anticipation of the ship’s demise. The ship’s crew struggle in vain to regain
control of their vessel, but with a series of loud cracks and women’s screams,
the ship sinks into the murky waters.
When the sea calms, a number of survivors
float, their heads downcast, upon the wreckage. One of the men finds the body of a woman
floating in the water who appears to be dead.
Suddenly, the mysterious female form begins to move, terrifying the
men. As the woman cries out as she
stretches herself into a standing position and one of the men immediately
clutches her by the hair and drags her to him.
The more the woman struggles to escape, the more desperate the men
become, tearing the clothes from her body and fighting each other to be the
first to claim her. The men’s fighting,
as depicted by Ofuji’s shadow cutouts, begins to resemble a dance – their arms
outstretched and curved move up and down like an interpretive dance depicting
the waves of the ocean.
The tension rises, stoked on by the
crescendoing orchestra of the soundtrack, to a fever pitch. At which point the black tale of the whale
rises and the woman screams out in terror.
The whale, as in the ancient tale of Jonah, swallows the woman and her
tormentors whole. This leads to the most
dazzling and abstract sequence in the film as the people float around the
shadowy belly of the whale, desperately trying to escape. The men are so consumed by fear that they
have forgotten their desire to rape the woman.
An exterior shot of the whale shows
him to be contentedly bobbing up and down in the ocean. He blows water out of his blowhole and with
it the woman and her three tormentors. They
land on the whale’s back, but it doesn’t take the men long to recover from
their shock and resume their attack on the woman. The woman resists, screams in terror, and races
up and down the whale’s back in a bid to escape. Two of the men fall off the whale and
disappear and the one remaining man continues to chance the woman until his
evil plan is foiled by the whale who raises his tail and flings the man to
certain death in the sea. A female
narrator concludes the story, telling us that since this incident the woman has
been spotted in the form of a mermaid.
Until this final narrative voice,
the story has actually been told entirely through a combination of the visuals, the music of composer Setsuo Tsukahara (romanized
as Tukahara in 1952), and the sound effects.
By sound effects, I mean not just creaks of the ship and the thunder but
also the gasps and laughter of the human characters. The
dialogue in Kujira is also more incidental than narrative in nature. Although the characters are clearly meant to
look like ancient Japanese people the story itself seems to be influenced by a
combination of Asian and European influences.
The mermaid, for example, resembles the mermaids and sirens of European mythology
more than she does the hideous ningyo of Japanese folklore. The idea of a whale swallowing people whole
also has very famous precedents in Western literature. Yet, as with the famous tales of Jonah and
Moby Dick, the whale is intended to be symbolic not realistic. I
think there are many possible readings that can be drawn from Kujira. For me, Ofuji is exploring the dark side of
human nature with the woman, who is the most virtuous character in the tale, being reborn in a new form at the end of the film.
Correcting historical facts about Kujira
In 1953, Ofuji’s Kujira (on the
programme as “La Baleine”) was part of the official selection at the Cannes Film
Festival (under the name Noburo Ohfuji).
Kujira is reputed to have received much praise from the Jury president
Jean Cocteau and festival attendee Pablo Picasso. Although it has been reported in many publications that the film won an award at this festival, the official Cannes website does not indicate this. Many people have claimed that Kujira won “Second Prize” at Cannes – but as Cannes
has no such prize this seems odd. I have
yet to find a reliable contemporary Japanese or French source that confirms the
events that took place in Cannes that year – I may have to dive into the old
French film periodicals in the Frankfurt Museum archives again soon. I will update when I do.
It has also been often reported in
error that Kujira appeared at Cannes in 1952. The Japanese Movie Database and other online
Japanese sources indicate that the film had its premiere in Japan in December
1952 – much too late for it to screen at Cannes in the spring of 1952. The case for Kujira screening at Cannes in April
1953 is backed up not only by the festival’s official website, but also by the
fact that Jean Cocteau was the president of the jury in 1953. This would give more credence to the oft-mentioned anecdote about Cocteau praising the film. The suggestion that
Picasso saw the film at Cannes is also likely true, as Picasso had a studio in the
nearby commune of Vallarius – as seen in this famous photograph of Brigitte
Bardot visiting Picasso in his studio during Cannes 1956.
A good transfer of Kujira is
available on the Kinokuniya DVD Ōfuji Noburō: Kūkō no Tensai. Ofuji's original films are held in the archives of the NationalFilm Center.
Catherine Munroe Hotes 2011