Japanese Package Design Exhibition

One of the more interesting cultural events organised by Nippon Connection this year was the Japanese Package Design Exhibition. The accompanying text suggested that the curators were interested in comparing and contrasting Asian and Western attitudes towards design and packaging. One of the key texts cited by the curators was Richard E. Nisbett’s The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently. . . And Why (2003).

The exhibition space was AustellungHalle (Schulstr. 1a) in Sachsenhausen. The gallery is tucked inconspicuously down an alley. I would have walked straight past the entrance if someone had not cleverly stuck some brightly coloured Tohato Caramel Corn packages on the iron gratings.

The event space was minimalistically conceived. An open, white space with cardboard boxes placed in rows. On the left hand side of the entryway was an example of a clear plastic convenience store umbrella with clear plastic disposable sheath. Upon entering, I was first drawn to the giant Pretz display in the corner on the right. These Pretz (a Japanese version of pretzel sticks) boxes were designed with pop-out arms so that they can be hooked onto handbags. They were also designed to look like cute little animals.

On the right hand wall, there was a long explanation of the theory behind Japanese package design. In short, they evaluated the packaging in terms of three principles: the principle of connection (Zusammenhang), the principle of opposition (Widerspruchs), and the principle of change (Wandels).

Each of the cardboard boxes was an individual display case for an item. The item itself was in a little nook and spectators were encouraged to handle and examine the item. In order to learn more about each item, one had to open the crate. Each flap contained photographs of the product which emphasized the key elements of that item. Once open, the spectator could read a detailed explanation about the theory behind the design of the packaging.

Items featured included the collectable faces of Tohato caramel corn, Fit’s Lotte gum with a wrapper designed so that you never have to touch the gum, ILOHAS crushable drink bottles, UFO instant noodles with a built in strainer, the convenient bottles of Suntory tea , Meiji Curls with Norio Hikone’s characters on the packaging, the versatile and elegant Tirol chocolate packaging, Pos-ca gum that comes with a tissue for throwing the gum away once chewed, Kirin drinks designed to resemble exotic postcards from far-away lands, ingenious convenience store onigiri plastic wrap, Glico pudding with its air seal, Hyotan mineral water in a fancy bottle “too lovely to throw away”, and Meiji Xylish gum with its colourful exterior and silver under-wrapping.

It was a trip down memory lane for me. I only wish that some of the products had been available for purchase at the gallery. It made me quite homesick for Japanese bottled ice teas and salty snacks.

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2011

Nippon Connection 2011

Rinco’s Restaurant (食堂かたつむり, 2010)

Freshness and simplicity are two of the defining features of traditional Japanese cooking. While in recent decades fast food may have made substantial gains in terms of popularity, there has long been a strong counter-resistance to these pressures of modernity. Rinco’s Restaurant (Shokudo Katatsumuri, 2010) is a film designed to appeal to an audience who appreciates organic slow food. In fact, a literal translation of the film title is actually “Snail Restaurant” – a name that Rinco chooses because of the slow and loving way in which she prepares her food.

Rinco (Kou Shibasaki) was born the only child of a woman named Ruriko (Kimiko Yo). Her mother has a reputation for having many boyfriends and cannot tell Rinco who her father is. At the outset of the film, we learn via Rinco’s first person narration that her grandmother has recently died leaving her only a donut and a pot of miso. Rinco loves her grandmother’s miso, and she dreams of using it one day to start her own restaurant.

She scrimps, saves, and works hard to earn the money to fulfil this dream. Along the way she falls in love with an Indian man, whose native cuisine inspires her further with dreams of the wonderful spicy dishes she could serve in her restaurant. It all comes crashing down when the man leaves her, stealing most of her possessions. The heartbreak causes Rinco to lose her voice, and she returns to her mother’s home with only her pot of grandma’s miso.

Shokudo Katatsumuri Standard Edition

Still determined to accomplish her dream, Rinco enlists the help of family friend Kuma-san (Brother Tom) who lends her money and his construction skills. Together, they transform Ruriko’s back shed into a delightful little restaurant. It soon becomes clear that Rinco is not only a talented chef, but that her lovingly made food has the power to transform people’s lives.

Mai Tominaga's film has many parallels with Mipo O’s recent film Here Comes the Bride, My Mom (2010) in that the heart of the film are not the romantic woes of the heroines but the troublesome mother-daughter relationship. The film belongs to a recent trend in food films in Japan – such as Seagull Diner (Naoko Ogigami, 2006), Nonchan Noriben (Akira Ogata, 2009), and The Chef of the South Pole (Shūichi Okita, 2009).

There is also an element of magic to the film that is reminiscent of Alfonso Arau’s popular adaptation of Laura Esquivel’s best-selling novel Like Water for Chocolate (Como agua para chocolate, 1992). The dream aspect of Rinco’s Restaurant is captured through the use of musical numbers composed by Mari Fukuhara and cutout style animation sequences which were directed by Osamu Sakai of Robot (the same studio where Oscar-winning director Kunio Katō works).

Unlike Like Water for Chocolate, this film does not seek a resolution through romantic love but through the main protagonist coming to an understanding about who she is as a person. It is a slow-moving film, with magical elements and will appeal to viewers who also appreciate the slow life. The food styling was done by Tomoko Yoshioka of Okazu Design. The food really looks delicious and I am very tempted to order the tie-in cookbook that Okazu Design has published.

Director

Mai Tominaga

Screenwriter

Hiroko Takai

Based on the novel by

Ito Ogawa

Cinematographer

Nobuyasu Kita

Animation

Osamu Sakai

Music

Mari Fukuhara

Food Stylist

Tomoko Yoshioka (Okazu Design)

Cast

Kou Shibasaki as Noriko (aka Rinko)

Kimiko Yo as Ruriko

Brother Tom as Kuma-san

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2011

Nippon Connection 2011

Here Comes the Bride, My Mom! (オカンの嫁入り, 2010)

Saddled with an unfortunately awkward English title and an even more unfortunate trailer, I had not been expecting great things from Mipo O’s Here Comes the Bride, My Mom! (Okan no Yomeiri, 2010). I went to see the film anyway thanks to a recommendation from Franco Picollo of the Italian blog about Japanese cinema Sonatine.

The trailer suggests that the film will be some kind of a screwball comedy romp à la Waterboys (Shinobu Yaguchi, 2001) or Nodame Cantabile (Hideki Takeuchi, 2008). Instead, I was delighted to find a heartfelt family drama that counterbalanced just enough comic moments to keep the film from becoming too depressing. Thematically, it has much in common with Yōji Yamada’s About Her Brother (2010), but instead of siblings the focus is on a mother-daughter relationship.

Kotatsu shots aplenty in this film set in traditional Osaka houses.

Tsukiko Morii is the only child of a single mother Yoko Morii (Shibobu Otake). Initially, Tsukiko seems the more mature of the two: making her mother’s bento, walking the dog, and taking care of the household chores. Their apparently cozy home life is thrown into disarray when her mother turns up drunk one rainy night with a young man in tow called Kenji-kun (Kenta Kiritani) whom she refers to as an “omiyage” (souvenir/gift).

Far from being a present for her daughter, the young, unemployed chef turns out to be her own fiancé. Tsukiko flies into a sulk and she, along with their gossipy landlady Saku, are appalled by Yoko’s infatuation with a man 10 years her junior. Tsukiko is jittery around Kenji, a pleasant young man who tries to break the ice by cooking meals and offering to help look after the dog. Will her mother change her mind and look towards someone her own age, like Tsukiko’s only father figure Dr. Murakami, or will Tsukiko find a way to reconcile herself to this new phase of her mother’s life? These are some of the questions that push the plot forward.

At first, the film unfolds in a relatively predictable fashion, until we learn some of the tragic background for why Tsukiko is not working and is nervous around young men. Apart from these events from a year ago, the plot delves very little into the reasons for Yukiko and her mother having no other family. This may frustrate some viewers, but I found it refreshing that the film contented itself with dealing with just the current relationship and issues between the mother and daughter instead of dragging up every little detail from the past that led to them being the women that they have become.

The film has clearly been written for and conceived by women and is the perfect film to see with close girlfriends or female relatives. It broaches a number of difficult topics faced by women including the precarious position of women in the workplace, stalking and harassment, and the impossible expectations that society has for mothers and daughters. At its core, the film tries to impart the message that we should live our lives openly and honestly with each other. When it comes to familial love, the pain of deception hurts much more than brutal honesty.

Order from cdjapan:

Okan no Yomeiri

This film and its soundtrack are available from cdjpapan.

Director/Screenwriter

Mipo O (aka Mipo Oh)

Based on the novel by

Tsukine Sakuno

Cinematographer

Shohei Tanikawa

Cast

Shibobu Otake as Yoko Morii

Aoi Miyazaki as Tsukiko Morii

Kenta Kiritani as Kenji Hattori

Moeko Ezawa as Saku Ueno

Jun Kunimura as Dr. Akira Murakami

Nippon Connection 2011

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2011

CALF at Nippon Connection 2011

We had excellent turnout for the CALF events last weekend at Nippon Connection. There were three CALF Events: the CALF Animation Special screening event, the Filmmaker’s Discussion with Nobuaki Doi, Mirai Mizue and Takashi Nagata, which I hosted, and a PiKA PiKA Workshop with Takeshi Nagata of Tochka.

The programme for the CALF Animation Special was slightly different than in the printed programme that I reported on last month. The first half of the programme consisted of films by young animators. It opened with Aico Kitamura’s Getting Dressed (2010) which is one of my favourite recent animated shorts. Anyone who has trouble getting out of bed in the morning to face the world will be able to identify with the main protagonist of this film. I could hear murmurs of recognition from female spectators sitting around me during the film.

While Getting Dressed faces the topic of depression head on, many of the other animated shorts were even more distressing or disturbing including Saori Shiroki’s Maggot (2007), Dong-Hun Kim’s Yoko (2010), Shin Hashimoto’s Beluga (2011) , and Wataru Uekusa’s Gentle March (2011). Fortunately, these more depressing films were counterbalanced by the uplifting tale of Naoyuki Tsuji’s Angel (2008) and Masaki Okuda’s dynamic A Gum Boy (2010).

A Gum Boy is so far my favourite animated short of 2011 (see my picks for the top animated shorts of 2010 to get an idea of what I like). Not only are the drawings and animation well executed, but I love it when the movement and editing of an animation works so well with the rhythm of the soundtrack. In this case, Masaki Okuda has chosen a text that is rife with Japanese onomatopoeia (sound words) which give the piece bounce and humour. I am hoping to track down a screener of this film so that I can write a full review of it. Keep an eye out for A Gum Boy on the animation festival circuit this year.

The second half of the programme were animated shorts by the artists who already have DVDs on the CALF label: Atsushi Wada, Kei Oyama (DVD forthcoming this fall), Mirai Mizue, and Tochka. In addition to the films on the original programme, the line-up also included Atsushi Wada’s Gentle Whistle, Bird and Stone (2005) and Well, that’s Glasses (2007) and Kei Oyama’s Consultation Room (which appears on Image Forum’s Thinking and Drawing DVD).

The films Gentle Whistle, Bird and Stone and Oyama’s Hand Soap (2008) made quite the impression on the audience because they deal so directly with bullying and abuse. Oyama’s technique of using photographs/scans of organic textures can evoke physical sensations in spectators and one audience member in particular seemed to have been quite upset by the emotions the film stirred in him.

Wada’s latest film, Mechanism of Spring (2010) was received warmly with audience members laughing out loud at the antics of the young boys. Whereas many of Wada’s works evoke sensations of control, this film has a much freer, unrestrained dynamic to it. The audience also responded very warmly to Mizue’s works and marvelled at the intricacy and complexity of Tatamp (2010) and Playground (2010). One of the audience members asked Mizue if synaesthesia played a role in his matching of colour with music, but Mizue seems much more interested in matching animated movement to tempo. With each new film he challenges himself to use more complex movements and to experiment with layering the images in innovative ways.

Installation view through peephole of Tochka's Steps

Tochka’s latest film Steps (2011) was one of the highlights of the festival for me. I am an unashamed fan of Norman McLaren and the stop motion animation and pixilation in this film were inspired by McLaren and Claude Jutra’s A Chairy Tale (1957). A small PiKA PiKA figure arranges and rearranges tiles in a step formation on a checkerboard floor for a pixillated human figure to climb. A delightful modern use of stop motion animation.   It had apparently originally been conceived as an installation in which people had to view it view peepholes.

Takeshi Nagata of Tochka also showed me some 30 second stop motion animated shorts that he and Kazue Monno did for MTV many years ago. It is a shame that MTV did not allow CALF to put these on their DVD because they are fantastic.

I both observed and participated in the Tochka workshop last weekend. It was a lot of fun and I will write about the event when the resulting PiKA PiKA short is edited and available online.

The Austrian documentary filmmaker Stefan Nutz attended all of the events in order to shoot footage for his film about independent animation in Japan. He unfortunately had to cancel his trip to Japan in April because of the earthquake and tsunami but he has already gathered a lot of terrific material and it promises to be a very engaging film.

Thank you to everyone who came out and supported the CALF events at Nippon Connection. It was a great success and I think our guests from Japan were very satisfied with the response. CALF DVDs can be ordered via their online shop.

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2011

Nippon Connection 2011

On the Passing of Nobuhiro Aihara (1944-2011)

It was with great sadness on Saturday that I learned of the death of one of my favourite animators, Nobuhiro Aihara (相原信洋, 1944-2011) at the age of 66. Takeshi Nagata of Tochka, who was a former student of Aihara’s at the Kyoto University of Art and Design, told me the news during Nippon Connection.

Aihara was born in Isegahara, Kanagawa Prefecture during World War II. His family ran a traditional ryokan and as the oldest son he was expected to take over this business. The daily grind of this kind of life did not appeal to Aihara, so he left home and dove into the worlds of commercial animation and graphic design.

Obake no Q-tarō

His animation career began at the then newly formed Studio Zero in the early 1960s. Studio Zero featured an exciting meeting of minds, having been founded by a group of young artists including the renowned animator Shin’ichi Suzuki, the prolific manga-ka Shotaro Ishinomori, comical manga-ka Fujio Akatsuka, and the manga-ka duo Fujiko Fujio (Hiroshi Fujimoto + Abiko Motō). During his time at Studio Zero, Aihara worked on series like Obake no Q-tarō (1965-67) and Kaibutsu-kun (1968-69).

Gauche the Cellist

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Aihara worked as a freelance animator and inbetweener. His name is associated in particular with Mushi Pro and Oh! Pro during this period. Although his name may not always appear in the credits, he worked on many anime classics including Gauche the Cellist (Isao Takahata, 1982), Night on the Galactic Railroad (Gisaburo Sugii, 1985), and Akira (Katsuhiro Otomo, 1988).

In the mid-1960s Aihara also began to make a name for himself as an experimental animator. While commercial animation was his bread-and-butter, alternative animation was his hobby and true passion. I have never had the opportunity to see Aihara’s pre-1990s experimental work although retrospectives have been held in Japan. According to Takeshi Nagata, Aihara was notoriously protective of his works, with very few of them ever being released on DVD. He was also quite frugal and when he put on screenings of his work at Kyoto University of Art and Design, students had to pay an admission fee to watch them.

Live Painting Animactions!! (2005)

As these early films are so rarely screened abroad, Aihara is best known on the world animation scene for his collaborations with Keiichi Tanaami. They worked together on over a dozen abstract animated shorts together and even held a live Animation Battle in 2005 (see: Tanaami + Aihara: Animation Scrap Diary + Live Painting Animactions!!). Their most recent film Dreams (2011) is screening as a part of this year’s Image Forum Festval Program.

Memory of Red

A favourite film of mine by Aihara is Memory of Red (2004) which was made using a crayon rubbing technique on textured paper. From what I have read, his earlier works are even more daring and experimental in nature. His film Stone (1975), for example, was selected by the Laputa 150 committee as one of 30 treasures of world animation that had not received recognition in their original poll. Curious about Aihara’s early work, I asked Takeshi Nagata if it was similar to the work of any other animators working at that time, and Nagata-san replied that Aihara’s work was unique and incomparable.

In an interview on the Chalet Pointu/CaRTe bLaNChe/arte multilingual DVD/Book Portrait of Keiichi Tanaami (田名網敬一の肖像): 14 Films 1975-2009, Tanaami described his relationship with “Aihara-kun” (Tanaami was the more senior of the two).  Here are some extracts from this interview:

For me, working alone definitely has limits whereas working in collaboration with someone is inspiring as it exposes you to their ideas. Moreover, this leads to a synthesis of each person’s style. It’s a method I like and that’s where our partnership was born. The main reason behind our collaboration is our longtime friendship. Our ways of thinking really overlap. The other reason is that we both teach at Kyoto University of Art and Design. We meet there every week and discuss our various projects. So that’s how we first decided to work together.

Our first collaboration was called Scrap Diary. I would draw a picture for a certain scene and leave it on Aihara-kun’s desk. Then he would add to it or remove some parts or even return it to me entirely redone. On the days I came to give a lecture I would find the drawing back on my desk. I would revise it once more, cutting or pasting, drawing or erasing and once again leave it on Aihara-kun’s desk. It was like an endless correspondence. After dozens of exchanges, the storyline gradually took shape and finally we could start animating the film. This was really like an exchange of letters between two artists. . .

. . . We do not make animated films by labouring over each frame in order to achieve a polished perfection. On the contrary, we grab ideas on the spur of the moment and let our inspiration guide us in order to put it on film as soon as possible. Improvisation is a very important aspect of our work. For example, we don’t want to make films that would take a year of tedious labour to complete. A sketch is a rough picture drawn by hand in a few seconds. Our way of working is similar. We make films as if we were sketching [映像スケッチ]. If Aihara-kun needed lots of time to create while I wanted to improvise we’d never be able to work together. Fortunately, we both like this loosely sketched style of filmmaking. I think it suits us well.

- Keiichi Tanaami (source, 3 August 2009)

Scrap Diary

I have always been fascinated by the interplay of these two great artists in their films together. One can always recognize the sections drawn by Aihara because of his unique style of drawing swirls, waves and patterns. I first encountered Aihara’s work at a screening of Tokyo Loop (2006) at Image Forum in January 2007. His contribution to this omnibus was Black Fish – a film that demonstrates Aihara’s skill at drawing intricate patterns that metamorphosize continually.  The film is truly mesmerizing to watch.  It begins close up so that the movements appear random, but as we get wider and wider shots, it becomes clear that we are watching the movements of black fish swimming.

As a professor of animation, Aihara was known for being generous with his time – arranging for students to join him on trips overseas to visit the Trnka Studios in the Czech Republic or to visit his home in Nepal (one of many homes that he owned). After class (or sometimes instead of class), he was often to be found in a kissaten or bar telling stories and talking about animation with his students.  In fact, he preferred drinking beer with students to standing before them lecturing them - though because he was stingy they were also expected to foot the bill. 

He was not known for moderation. Kazue Monno of Tochka has called him a “true Edo-ko” (Tokyoite), and added that he could sometimes be quite foul-mouthed and was known to badmouth other people. He had a shrill voice that carried well, which could lead to some rather awkward situations. He also stood out in a crowd with his wild, unruly hair and colourful Nepalese shirts. In spite of his eccentricities, his students admired him for his skills as an animator, his observations about animation technique, and the life experiences he shared with them. 

Fetish Doll

The details of Aihara’s passing are not yet known. Reports (Yomiuri) say that he passed away in a hotel on the island of Bali in Indonesia. The cause of death is believed to have been heart failure (msn). Many across the animation world have been shocked by the news, with the staff at Anido writing that they hoped that it was just an internet rumour (anido). 

My thanks to Takeshi Nagata and Kazue Monno of Tochka for sharing information with me regarding their personal experiences with their sensei Aihara. Many of the details of this piece are based on the long conversation Nagata-san and I had on Saturday evening at Nippon Connection and the touching note Monno-san wrote on Facebook. Monno-san felt that it was somehow fitting that Aihara should die in Bali, because of his love of world travel.

Aihara did the poster art for Hiroshima 2010

Nobuhiro Aihara is reputed to have made over 60 independent shorts. Here is a filmography of the titles that I have managed to learn about over the years:

Filmography

1968 Ame

1969 Stop

1970 Time to Kill

1970 Sakura

1970 Fūshoku

1971 Yamakagashi

1972 Oshiori Hane

1972 Akai Gyaman

1972 Mitsubachi no kisetsu wa satte

1973 Urushi

1973 Aisanka Hana

1973 Shoshun Kitsune-iro

1973 Tankyori Runner

1974 Bōdō

1975 Stone

1975 Stone No. 1

1976 Kumo no ito

1976 Light

1976 Aoi Matchi

1976 Ringo to Shojō

1977 Karuma

1978 Hikari

1980 Burnin

1980 Shelter

1980 Suiwa: Karuma 2

1982 My Shelter

1983 Balva

1984 S=13

1985 Ouma ga toki

1986 Private

1987 Eizō (Kage)

1988 Tombo

1989 Gavora

1990 Line

1991 Mask

1992 Karasu

1993 Spin

1994 Kidō

1995 Miminari

1996 Rain

1997 Memory of Cloud

1998 Yellow Fish

1999 The Third Eye

2000 Wind

2004 Memory of Red

2005 Yellow Night

2006 Yellow Snake

2006 Black Fish (Tokyo Loop)

2007 Lotus

2008 Zap Cat

Collaborations with Keiichi Tanaami

2000 Yami no Kiyoku ・Yume no Inei

2001 Kaze no Kokyū

2002 Scrap Diary

2002 Running Man

2003 Fetish Doll

2004 Landscape

2004 Yume 10-ya

2005 Trip

2005 Madonna no Yūwaku

2006 Noise

2007 Issun Bōshi (Inch-High Samurai)

2008 Chirico

2008 Paradise for Eye

2009 Shunga

2011 Dreams

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2011

Sayaka Ono’s The Duckling (アヒルの子, 2005/2010)

Scratch the surface of anyone’s life story and one is sure to find a skeleton or two in the closet. 20-year old Tokyo film student Sayoko Ono (小野さやか) seems to have many that haunt her. She suffers from depression and thoughts of suicide. For her graduate project, Ono decides to take her camera with her as she confronts members of her family in an effort to find some kind of a resolution for the pain she carries with her.  The resulting film is The Duckling (Ahiru no ko, 2005/2010)

Ono comes from Ehime prefecture, on the island of Shikoku. As she travels down to visit her family, she crosses the Seto-Ohashi Bridge which was built when she was a child as a way of connecting the isolated island to the industrial centers of Honshu for the first time. In many ways, Ono seems to be like an isolated island within her family, and she has been pushing down her suffering deep inside of her since her early childhood.  Inside, she feels like the ugly duckling of the proverbial tale by Hans Christian Andersen.

One-by-one, Ono confronts each member of her immediate family with declarations of incestual love, accusations of sexual abuse, and feelings of jealousy and neglect. She claims to have spent her childhood desperately trying to be a “good girl” in order to feel wanted and loved by her parents. The director traces her emotional breakdown to the age of 5 when she, along with dozens of other children from across the country, were sent to a boarding Kindergarten in Yamagishi (Toyosato, Mie Prefecture). A part of the Yamagishi movement – a network of egalitarian communities who try to live off the resources of the land – the Kindergarten offered children a one year experience in a rural setting. They promised the parents a kind of rural paradise where their children could plant vegetables, feed livestock and run free out of doors. 

In actuality, the children suffered from intense homesickness and abuse (spanking, punishment for bed wetting). Although Ono knows that the Yamagishi experience is partially responsible for her psychological troubles, she has few memories of her stay there. So the second part of the film is her search for former classmates and employees of the institution. These shared memories are part of therapeutic process for Ono of piecing together her own fragmented memories so that she can move forward with her life.

On the one hand, this is a very brave, intensely personal documentary. On the other hand, I felt myself strangely unmoved during many of the most emotionally intense sequences. Normally such a personal, painful family history would move me to tears – as did Yongi Yang’s Sona, the Other Myself (2009) at last year’s Nippon Connection. What kept me an arm’s distance from the material was the way in which it was filmed. The scenes in which Ono confronts family members seemed to all be two camera set ups with a consistent soundtrack. This suggested to me that in addition to the family members in the room, there were at least two camera operators and a sound operator. My awareness of how many people were in the room, and how stylized it was (artsy cutaways and high angle shots) made me question the veracity of what I was seeing.

The question really is whether or not Ono’s family really consented to all of this being filmed. And if they did, then did they think it was just some school project that nobody would ever see or did they consent to it being shown to festival audiences around the world?  I find it hard to believe that all of them would sign consent forms for this film. In fact, one of her brother’s admits to a crime on camera – although I am not sure how doggedly Japanese police pursue sexual assault committed by minors. If it is real, then it is the first time I have seen a family challenged on camera in such a way by one of their own. As this film was shot over 5 years ago now, I wonder how Ono looks back on the emotional immaturity of her younger self. This is a very subjective film because Ono seems at this stage in her life unable to put herself into the shoes of others. 

For me the most interesting part of the film was the Yamagishi footage and interviews. I would love to see Ono flesh this part of the film out. I did not know about the Yamagishi movement when I was watching the film and thought that the Kindergarten was one of these make-work projects where the government comes up with schemes to bring jobs into rural communities. The truth of the matter appears to be much more insidious and disturbing and I think Ono could really make an eye-opening film about it now that she has her graduate work under her belt. The Duckling is a problematic film, but definitely worth watching.

You can follow Sayako Ono on her blog and on Twitter (both JP only).

Nippon Connection 2011

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2011

The Borrower Arrietty (借りぐらしのアリエッティ, 2010)

The Borrower Arrietty won the Audience Award at Nippon Connection last night. Many snorts of derision were to be heard from some of the film critics at the after party who felt that it was just more of the same from Studio Ghibli. I think that many of them were hoping that Hiromasa Yonebayashi would push the envelope a little bit further in his first chance in the director’s role for a feature film.

I, on the other hand, was quite delighted with Arrietty. In fact, as a Mom, I highly recommend it. Longtime readers will know that I am a big fan of Studio Ghibli films and may have wondered why I have not yet reviewed Ponyo (Hayao Miyazaki, 2008). The reason is that my instinctive reaction to the film was a subjective one as a mother, rather than an objective one as a film critic. Yes, Ponyo has fantastic animation sequences – particularly of the waves – but as a mother there are elements to the storyline that remind me of things that upset me about how some children are raised in Japan. Ponyo is cute and appeals to small children, but there are some themes in the film that play on a Kindergarten child’s worst fear: the fear of being abandoned by their parents. My daughter was terrified by the wave sequences, and a huge part of it was that Sōsuke’s mother had left him and Ponyo to take care of themselves.

The garden sequences were beautifully animated.

Arrietty, on the other hand, is a return to the older pre-adolescent girl type that we are familiar like Satsuki in My Neighbour Totoro (Miyazaki, 1988), Kiki in Kiki’s Delivery Service (Miyazaki,1989) and Chihiro in Spirited Away (Miyazaki, 2001). Young Arrietty is lovely and confident and will inspire admiration in a young audience. The film is an adaptation of Mary Norton’s children’s novel The Borrowers (1952) about little people who live in the homes of big people ("Human Beans") and borrow things that they need for their day-to-day lives.

The Yonebashi adaptation keeps some of the elements of the lush English-style home and garden from such stories but transfers it to a modern-day Japanese setting. There are elements that cause some confusion as to time and place. For example, the old house has a old-fashioned rotary dial phone, yet the delivery man has a cell phone. Yet these quirky out-of-time elements adds to the quaintness of the locale: a setting that looks familiar yet fantastic all at the same time.

A doll house that young girls dream of having.

As usual, Studio Ghibli has paid meticulous attention to detail and the design of the little people’s home and the big people's doll house is truly a delight. The colours and the lushness of the garden are truly delightful. I particularly love the added touch of Arrietty’s positive relationship with insects – a common motif in Japanese animation. The character design has the Studio Ghibli “look” that we have come to know and love, and there are some wonderfully funny characters to give moments of levity amidst the drama.

I must admit that I am also a fan of Celtic music, so I found Cécile Corbel’s influence on the soundtrack quite pleasant. The best news for parents is that the film is 94 minutes, which is very reasonable for taking young children to the cinema. While I agree with my more cynical film critic colleagues that the film makes many “safe” choices so that it will do well commercially, I am optimistic that the success of Arrietty will give Yonebashi the confidence to spread his wings a little and show us his own individual artistic and creative potential. I am looking forward to taking my kids to see Arrietty when it comes to German theatres in June.

Nippon Connection 2011

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2011

To order the DVD:

The Borrower Arrietty (English subtitles)