Very early in his career as an
independent animator, Tadanari Okamoto
decided to try out new modes of expression and technique for each of his short films. From coloured yarn together with paint on
glass in Are wa dare? (1976) to painted
cedar cutouts in Praise be to Small Ills
(1973), Okamoto went to great lengths to match the aesthetic of the animation
to the story that he wanted to tell.
Okamoto’s final film, The Restaurant of Many Orders (注文の多い料理店/Chūmon
no Ooi Ryōriten, 1991) looks nothing like the 30+ films that preceded it at Echo Productions. The film is an adaptation of a
famous short story by the early Shōwa writer and poet Kenji Miyazawa. Miyazawa’s
writing has been a fruitful source
of inspiration to animators, as the fantastic and surreal elements of his writing
are well suited to the medium of animation.
Two hunters dressed in British-style hunting gear – one man tall and slender,
the other short and stout – drive furiously
into the forest to go deer hunting. They set
off into the woods, dragged along by their hunting dogs. The dogs chase off after some deer but do
not immediately return. As the men stop
for a break, they hear one of the dogs squeal as if in pain. They run off in search of their dogs and find
that they have strangely dropped dead.
A chilly wind blows eerily and foggy weather sets
upon the men. Without their dogs and
unable to find their vehicle again, the men grow hungry and weary. One has the impression that these two could
not survive in the wild for long on their own.
Out of the fog, they suddenly glimpse the lit windows of the Wild Cat
Restaurant. They are greeted, not by a
host but by a sign which welcomes them in.
It is all very odd, but the men are terribly hungry so they enter.
They ring the bell in the lobby, but
again no one appears. They look around
the lobby and discover a shooting game.
After many attempts, the tall and slender man finally “kills” one of the
deer in the game. After much waiting
they spot another sign which bids them to enter further into the building. They encounter a room with a sink where a
sign asks them to use the products provided to clean themselves up. The men are a bit taken aback by this request
but imagine it must be a pretty fancy establishment with beautiful women so
they do as they are told.
They then enter a church-like space
with giant stained glass windows depicting scenes from nature. A giant spider startles the men and they
shoot the glass. In a brilliantly
animated sequence the shards transform into butterflies which overwhelm the men
before flying away. After several more
adventures in this labyrinthine building, they do eventually find a table set
for dinner in a cavernous room. But are
they really the guests in this establishment or is there a more sinister plot
underfoot?
This is my favourite kind of film:
one which does not rely upon narration or written text but instead tells a
story using visuals only. The original
Miyazawa story did have dialogue, so this is an aesthetic decision made by
Okamoto. The lack of voice-over
narration increases the impact of the short notes that the two hunters
encounter in the unusual restaurant of many orders. In addition to the stained glass/butterfly
sequence the dancing sequence in which wraith-like women transform into wild
cats is also quite remarkable. The depth
of field and the attention to detail in each frame is truly stunning.
For the look of the film, Okamoto
wanted to make a 2D film that nevertheless had texture and came up with the
idea of having the film resemble a moving copper plate engraving. In order to achieve this look he asked Reiko
Okuyama to join his animation team.
Okuyama had recently retired from Toei Dōga after nearly 3 decades as an animator and had taken up the art of copper plate engraving. If one compares The Restaurant of Many Orders to the animated short that Okuyama, with the
assistance of her husband Yōichi Kotabe,
contributed to the collaborative film project Winter Days
(Kihachirō Kawamoto, 2003), one can see that Okuyama contributed a
great deal to the look of Okamoto's last great work.
According to Anipages,
The Restaurant of Many Orders was
intended as a warm up for Okamoto’s first feature-length film which he intended
to call Hotarumomi. Unfortunately, this prolific animator’s
future plans were cut short by liver cancer and The Restaurant of Many Orders was left in limbo upon Okamoto’s
passing on Febrary 16, 1990.
Fortunately, fellow puppet animator Kihachirō
Kawamoto took up the task of seeing his close friend and Puppet
Anime-Show collaborator’s final film through to completion.
The
Restaurant of Many Orders won high praise from both critics and fellow
animators. In fact, it won a many prizes
including the prestigious Noburo
Ofuji Award. Okamoto continues to
hold the record to this day for the most Noburo Ofuji Awards won. Okamoto himself was even awarded a special
prize posthumously by the Mainichi Film Concours for his outstanding
contribution to animation in Japan. The Restaurant of Many Orders ranked #115 on the Laputa
150 poll in 2003.
This film is available on the DVD The Collected Works of Tadanari Okawamoto, vol. 3 and in the Box Set (both JP only). This review is part of my ongoing series
dedicated to the Noburo
Ofuji Award.
©cmmhotes
2012
Related Posts:
Reviews of Okamoto’s Home
My Home, Are
wa dare?, A
Wonderful Medicine, and MORE….
Direction:
Tadanari Okamoto 岡本忠成
Kihachirō Kawamoto 川本喜八郎
Screenplay/Producer:
Tadanari Okamoto 岡本忠成
Original Story:
Kenji Miyazawa 宮沢賢治
Production Assistant:
Yoshihiro Shinohara 篠原義浩
Cinematography:
Akihiko Takahashi 高橋明彦
Mikio Nakaide 中出三記夫
Editing:
Fusako Shuzui 守随房子
Music:
Ryohei Hirose 広瀬量平
Sound:
Isamu Koufuji 甲藤勇
Art Department:
Noriko Kawashita 川下倫子
Setsuko Onowzawa 小野沢節子
Masami Tokuyama 徳山正美
Animation:
Nobuko Abe 阿部信子
Reiko Okuyama 奥山玲子
Keizo Kira 吉良敬三
Satoru Yoshida 吉田悟
Takako Yokokawa 横川たか子
Eiko Miyabayashi 宮林英子
Mitsuko Ōya 大宅光子
Tamaki Kōbe 神戸環
Kazuo Tashiro 田代和男
Hiroshi Kagawa 香川浩
Hiroshi Taisenji 泰泉寺博
Katsushi Wakui 和久井克史
Mitsuhiro Kimura 木村光宏
Setsuko Kagawa 香川節子
Lighting:
