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 19th 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