The Scent of Pheasant’s Eye (福壽草, 1935)

The Scent of Pheasant’s Eye: An Episode from the Tales of Flowers (1935)

乙女シリーズ その一 花物語 福壽草

Shōjo shiriizu sono hito - hana monogatari fukujusō

For their 10^th anniversary, Camera Japan Festival in Rotterdam presented a benshi performance with piano accompaniment of the rarely seen silent film The Scent of Pheasant’s Eye: An Episode from the Tales of Flowers (乙女シリーズ その一 花物語 福壽草 / Shōjo shiriizu sono hito-hana monogatari fukujusō, 1935).  The revival of this film occurred in 2008/9 with screenings at the National Film Center in Tokyo (2008), who has a 35mm print of the film, and at the Tokyo International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival (2009). Screenings of the film have featured benshi performances by either Midori Sawato or Ichiro Kataoka.  The film’s first international screening is believed to have been at the 2013 Pordenone Silent Film Festival.

The Story

The film is based on a story found in Tales of Flowers (花物語/Hana Monogatari, 1916-1924) by Nobuko Yoshiya (吉屋信子, 1896-1973).  The 52 stories of romantic female friendships in this collection were very popular with female students of the day.  Yoshiya was a prolific and commercially successful writer who is considered a pioneer in lesbian literature.  Her same-sex (dosei-ai) romances were considered acceptable because they depicted lesbianism as a phase on the road to a culturally acceptable heterosexual marriage. 

The “pheasant’s eye” of the title English common name of the flower fukujusō (フクジュソウ / Adonis ramosa).  In the original kanji it means luck (福/fuku), long life (寿/ju), and herb(草/sō).  It belongs to the family of flowers named after mythological figure Adonis.  In East Asia, the fukujusō is a rare yellow flower found mainly in central and northern Japan.  In the context of this story, the flower is a metaphor for the rare beauty of the young female protagonists.  This is made clear by the opening quote from Yoshiya herself: “I dedicate this to the lovely young flowers.”

The Scent of Pheasant’s Eye tells the story of a high school girl called Kaoru Sakamoto who falls in love with her sister-in-law Miyoko.  Her crush actually develops before she has even met her brother’s new wife.  It is an arranged marriage and the "sisters" only meet on the wedding day.  A romantic young girl, Kaoru and her friends are the kind of girls who would be likely to read Nobuko Yoshiya’s novels and fantasize about their ideal romantic partner.  As the friendship blossoms between Kaoru and Miyoko, Kaoru grows jealous of any affection Miyoko shows Kaoru’s brother.  Kaoru’s schoolmates and family act as foils for her moody behaviour.  The drama of any romance is kept light with comedic moments such as the slapstick scene where the two young ladies are being photographed together in nature and the photographer falls into the water.   The physical comedy in the film shows the influence of the American silent greats like Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and Harold Lloyd.   The lesbian love affair is suggested via the female gaze and evocative mise-en-scène, but no direct dialogue.  Miyoko is equally flirtatious with her husband as she is with his sister, causing the latter to indulge in jealous temper tantrums. 

The Cast

Star billing is given to Naomi Egawa in the role of Kaoru Sakamoto.  She gives a melodramatic performance, putting on a hilarious “jealousy face” every time her sister-in-law shows her brother some affection.  The benshi, Kataoka-san, told me that Kaoru’s “jealousy face” had the audience at the 2009 Tokyo International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival in stitches.  Egawa’s film career seems to have just been in the 1930s.  In contrast to Egawa’s melodramatics, Matsue Hisamatsu puts in a more subtle performance as Miyoko, the object of Kaoru’s intense affections.  Hisamatsu’s film career was even briefer than that of Egawa.

The best actors in this film are Akira Kichōji (credited under his real name of Mitsuhiko Okazaki) as Kaoru’s brother Mitsuo, and Buman Kahara (also credited under his real name of Keiji Ōizumi) as her father. Both men went on to have long and varied careers as character actors.   Kichōji’s best known films are Seven Samurai (1954), where he played one of the farmers, and Japan’s Longest Day (1967), while appeared in films such as Shōhei Imamura’s My Second Brother (1960) and Pigs and Battleships (1961).  With his expressive face, Kichōji plays Mitsuo as a very charming man.  However, the show-stealing performance of the film is that of Kahara who opens the film with a hilarious slapstick bicycle ride which would have been right at home in a Buster Keaton film. 

The Cinematography

The real star of Scent of Pheasant’s Eye for me is the extremely innovative cinematography.  The film opens with a POV shot of Kaoru’s father, a town councillor, coming home by bicycle.  I am not sure how they shot it, but it does indeed look as though they mounted the camera on an actual bicycle.  At first, the councillor's form of transportation is unclear, we only know that it is a bumpy ride and get to enjoy, from his perspective, the bemused farmers’ greetings of this well-known local figure.  When we do finally get to see a shot of him, it is played for comic effect.  His way has been blocked and he berates whoever is blocking his way.  When the camera finally widens the shot, we see that he has been telling off a cow rather than a person.  Such visual gags are frequent in the film, giving us a welcome respite from Karou’s sometimes over-the-top melodrama. 

The unusual framings of dialogue and action seem fresh and innovative for the time.  By the mid-1930s in the USA, the classical Hollywood style had largely been standardized and this film would have broken all those rules.  It seems surprising that this film has remained hidden from international scholarship for decades.  The cinematographer is Asakazu Nakai (中井朝一, 1901-88), who went on to become a frequent collaborator of Akira Kurosawa.  The film gave me a thirst to see more of his early work, as I have only seen the films for which his cinematography is renowned, like Stray Dog (1949), Ikiru (1952), Seven Samurai (1954), Throne of Blood (1957), High and Low (1963) and Ran (1985).  In total, he made over 130 films in his long and successful career, but his pre-war work has been little seen or written about.

The Director

Not a great deal is known about the director Jirō Kawate (川手二郎, b. 1904 – d. unknown).  He was born in Nagano Prefecture and it is said that his admiration for the renowned film and kabuki actor Bando Tsumasaburo (阪東妻三郎, 1901-53) inspired him to get into the film industry himself.  He first worked as an extra, then as an assistant director, before becoming a director in 1932 for Shinkō Kinema.  

In 1936 he moved to what is now Toho Studios, where he made several films of the genre Kulturfilm (文化映画 / Bunka eiga).  He then returned to his hometown to work in real estate, but nothing is known about his life since he retired from the film industry.

Jirō Kawate Complete Filmography:

1932父をたづねて三千里 / Chichi wo tazunete sanzen-ri

1933時雨ひととき/ Shigure Hito-toki

1933花嫁選手 / Hanayome Senshu

1933結婚快走記 / Kekkon Kaisōki

1934 誕生日/ Tanjyōbi

1934細君ネロ 家庭争議の巻 / Saikun Nero Kateisōgi no Kan

1935福寿草 / Fukujusō

1935釣鐘草 / Tsuriganisō

1935恋の浮島 / Koi no Ukishima

1936乙女橋 / Otomebashi

1936残月の歌 / Kingetsu no uta

The Screening with Benshi and Piano Performances

Ichiro Kataoka shortly before his performance of 'The Scent of Pheasant's Eye: An Episode from the Tales of Flowers'. Featuring Kevin Toma on piano.

A photo posted by Cathy Munroe Hotes (@nishikataeiga) on Sep 26, 2015 at 1:52am PDT

Ichiro Kataoka’s benshi performance was, as always, stellar.  He performed together with the Dutch silent film pianist Kevin Toma.  Toma and Kataoka met for the first time on the day.  They had a chance to talk to each other beforehand and did a sound check together, but they did not rehearse together.  One could liken their improvisational performance to jazz music.  Kataoka played off of the script that he wrote for the film in 2008.  Much of the film’s dialogue was preserved, but I noticed that he added his own interpretation to scenes.  I have seen him perform in Germany with projected subtitles of his script, but this film only had the NFC English subtitles of the title cards (done by the amazing husband and wife team Dean Shimauchi), so non-speakers of Japanese missed out on some of the poetic touches Kataoka brought to the film, such as his description of the changing seasons.  One moment that needed no translation was his hilarious interpretation of a scene in which two deaf old men play Go together but only have one ear trumpet to shout at each other through. 

The pianist, Toma, does not play silent movie standards.  He composes his own music, improvises, and often adds themes from some of his favourite composers.  During this performance he apparently used a melody from a piece by Toru Takemitsu.  The film was consisted of three 35mm reels that were on loan from the NFC but the cinema had only one projector, so Toma had to improvise during the long reel changes.  On the whole it was a lively performance much enjoyed by the audience.  

Incidentally after the performance I discovered that Kataoka is from Nerima (a ward in Tokyo).  This was a funny coincidence, I thought to myself, because Nerima is famous for its daikon radishes, and there is a memorable scene in The Scent of Pheasant’s Eye where Mitsuo flirts with Miyoko as she washes a long row of daikon in the river.  When I asked Kataoka about this, he laughed and told me that The Scent of Pheasant’s Eye was actually shot in Nerima and because of this, he would be doing a benshi performance of the film in Nerima next year.  Keep your eyes open for the event next year Tokyoites – it is worth watching!

Director

Jirō KAWATE 川手二郎

Script

Raizo HAGINO萩野頼三

Jirō KAWATE川手二郎

Nobuko YOSHIYA吉屋信子 (novel)

Camera

Asakazu NAKAI  中井朝一

Cast

Kaoru SAKAMOTO 坂本薫：Naomi EGAWA 江川なほみ

Miyoko (Kaoru’s sister-in-law) 薫の嫂美代子：Matsue HISAMATSU 久松美津枝

Kimiko (Kaoru’s classmate) 薫の学友春日公子：Ginko HANABUSA 花房銀子

Tsuyako (Kaoru’s classmate) 薫の学友阿部ツヤ子：Kimie HAYASHI 林喜美枝

Housemistress 舎監先生：Mineko KOMATSU 小松峰子

Governer’s wife 知事夫人：Junko KIMURA 木村潤子

Mitsuo (Kaoru’s Brother) 薫の兄満雄：Akira Kichōji吉頂寺 晃 credited as Mitsuhiko OKAZAKI 岡崎光彦

Kaoru’s father 薫の父村長さん：Bumon KAHARA 加原 武門 credited as Keiji ŌIZUMI 大泉慶治

Photographer 写真屋：Kan UEDA上田寛

Go-playing old man 碁敵のおじさん：Eirō NIIMI  新見映郎

Old man 人のいいおじさん：Joe Ohara  ジョウ・オハラ

Masako KINOSHITA 木下政子：Ruriko HOSHI 星ルリ子

Schoolmaster 校長：Yōyō KOJIMA 小島洋々

2015 Cathy Munroe Hotes

Koji Yamamura Retrospective at Nippon Connection 2014

Nippon Connection 2014 will be holding a retrospective of the career of acclaimed independent animator Kōji Yamamura on May 30,2014.  Yamamura himself will be in attendance and I am honoured to announce that I will be hosting a Q+A with him after the screenings.

Yamamura has received numerous awards in his career including Grand Prix at several prestigious festivals (Annecy 2003, Zagreb 2004, Hiroshima 2004, et al.) and an Oscar nomination (2003).  His films bring together cultural influences from not only his native country but also from abroad, particularly Canada (Norman McLaren, Ishu Patel, et al.)  and Europe (Yuri Norstein, Priit Pärn, et al.).  His work also demonstrates the influence of literature, with some of his films being inspired by such varied works as Franz Kafka’s A Country Doctor, Jorge Luis Borges’s “The Library of Babel” (Fictions), the Kojiki (the oldest extant text of Japanese mythology), and traditional rakugo storytelling (Atama Yama). 

The retrospective is a cross-section of his works since 1998. This includes some of his most critically acclaimed films like Mt. Head and Muybridge’s Strings, as well as some of his lesser known works such as Jubilee, the music video he made for a song by Kazuyoshi Nakamura, and Anthology with Cranes, his adaptation of an original painting by 17^th century artist Sōtatsu Tawaraya.  See the full listing of films below.

Yamamura is professor of animation at Tokyo University of the Arts (aka Geidai), and will also be presenting a selection of films by recent graduates of the programme at NipponConnection 2014.  He is currently vice-president of the Japanese Animation Association and a member of the board of the Japanese branch of ASIFA.  Yamamura recently opened an animation store and gallery called Au Praxinoscope in Jiyugaoka.  The gallery is currently holding an exhibition on Pritt Pärn which runs until May 31^st and will be followed by an Igor Kovalyov solo exhibition. 

Koji Yamamura Retrospective

Date:  Friday, May 30
Time:  17:30
Location:  Naxoshalle Kino
Tickets:  Nippon Connection

Filmmachergespräch mit Koji Yamamura 
Moderation: Cathy Munroe Hotes

Date:  Friday, May 30
Time:  22:15
Location:  Mousonturm Studio 3

Eintritt Frei (Free Entry)

The retrospective will include: 

The Hyuga episode of Kojiki  (古事記 日向篇/ Kojiki Hyūgahen, Japan, NHK, 2013)

Four short episodes from the Kojiki including Japan's creation myth and the emergence of the gods.  I plan to review this one at some time between now and NC2014.  

Mr. Rib Globe (地球肋骨男/Chikyu Rokkotsu Otoko, Japan, 1998)

The oldest Yamamura film in the retrospective, this short short was made for TV.  A surreal little piece about a terrestrial globe with a skeletal structure inside.

Jubilee ( Japan, 1999)

A music video to promote the song by Kazuyoshi Nakamura.

Pieces (おまけ/Omake, 2003)

A playful series of nine vignettes that incorporates visual gags, 19th century animation technology and surrealist humour.  Read my full review here.

Fig (無花果/Ichijiku, Tokyo Loop omnibus, 2006)

Yamamura's contribution to the omnibus animation Tokyo Loop, which combines a celebration of the 100th anniversary of Stuart Blackton's Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (1906) with an ode to the city of Tokyo.  In Fig, Tokyo Tower and a window transform themselves into characters and roam the nightscape of Tokyo.   Learn more about Tokyo Loop here.

Anthology with Cranes (鶴下絵和歌巻/Tsuru shitae waka kan, Japan, 2011)

five fire fish (Canada, NFB, 2013)

An improvisation on the NFB's iPad app McLaren's Workshop. See my article Direct Animation for the Tablet Generation to learn more.

Mt. Head (頭山/Atama Yama, Japan, 2002)

The first Yamamura animation I ever saw, Mt. Head is an adaptation of a rakugo story in collaboration with rakugo performer and musician Takeharu Kunimoto.  Read more.

The Old Crocodile (年をとった鰐/Toshi wo Totta Wani, Japan, 2005)

An adaptation of French author and illustrator Leopold Chauvaud's "Histoire du vieux crocodile."  Learn more here.

A Child’s Metaphysics (こどもの形而上学/Kodomo no Keijijōgaku, 2007)

A delightful rumination on what it means to be a child.  Read more here.

Muybridge’s Strings (マイブリッジの糸/Maiburijjino Ito, Canada/Japan, NFB, 2011)

A poetic investigation of the nature of time that takes us on a journey into cinematic history.  Learn more in my review.

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2014

WONDER (2014)

“Dedicated to my teacher Masahiro Katayama, 

who opened up my eyes to the WONDER of animation.” 

- Mirai Mizue, WONDER, end credits

“Wonder” is the word I would use to describe the emotion that I felt when I first discovered the animation of Norman McLaren as a child exploring the NFB video tape collection in my local library.  I had been exposed to NFB animation in school, but this was something new and exciting, and it changed my understanding of animation forever.  I imagine that feeling of wonder is what Mirai Mizue and his peers (Kunio Katō, Akino Kondoh, among others) felt when Professor Masahiro Katayama (read: In Memory Of) introduced them to the world of independent animation as undergraduates at Tama Art University in the early 2000s.  Thus, it was moving to see that Mizue had dedicated his latest animated short, the aptly named WONDER (2014) to his late sensei.

I am reminded of that sense of wonder whenever I see a new film by Mirai Mizue because like Norman McLaren, he is constantly challenging himself with innovative animation projects.  WONDER is the end result of the WONDER 365 ANIMATION PROJECT executed by Mizue between April 1, 2012 and March 31, 2013.  In this project, Mizue set himself the goal of producing a one-second film – 24 images – per day for 365 days with the support of sponsors.  At the completion of that year, Mizue’s producers, CaRTe bLanChe, set up a kickstarter campaign to transform the resulting sequence of 8,760 images into a complete film (8 minutes in length) – including a 35mmm print and a soundtrack by the acoustic band the Pascals – that could be sent to international festivals.  So far, WONDER (see: official website) has made the Jury Selection at the Japan Media Arts Festival, and last week it competed in the shorts competition at the Berlinale.  

ゴールドベアーはもらえなかったけど、ゴールドフィルムを受け取った！ 映画『ワンダー・フル!!』2/22~ヒューマントラストシネマ渋谷 http://t.co/CFLLiOl1ob pic.twitter.com/UB93StzpBE

— 水江未来／MIRAI MIZUE (@MIRAI_MIZUE) February 16, 2014

映画祭終了後の翌日の上映は100%一般観客対象。日曜の夜でもソールドアウトで感嘆！活発なQ&Aを終えたあと帰りにレッドカーペットを歩いていたら、水江さん女性観客たちに「素晴らしかった！とっても気分が良いわ」と話しかけられてました♪ pic.twitter.com/qibaLH2FPG

— 岡本珠希｜Tamaki Okamoto (@tmk_kmt) February 17, 2014

Mizue animated WONDER using his signature “cell animation” technique that he has been wowing audiences with since his debut animation Fantastic Cell in 2003.  The cells in question refer not to celluloid (as in the traditional animation technique “cel animation”), but to organic cells which make up the basic structures of the weird and wonderful creatures that Mizue brings to life in his abstract films. In the programme to the Berlinale, Mizue’s technique is compared to a colour organ (Farbenklavier), “in which visual effects are produced when a musical key is struck,” they describe Mizue’s latest film as “a journey to the world of cells and structures.” (Source: Berlinale).  In addition to the cells animation, WONDER features a wide range of abstract paintings that by turns complement and contrast with each other. 

MIRAI MIZUE × PASCALS【WONDER -Trailer -】 from MIRAI_MIZUE on Vimeo. 

Mizue does not use storyboards in planning his films, but instead improvises using his intuition.  This imparts a lyrical quality to his work and results in a film in which every new transformation surprises the viewer like fireworks exploding in the sky.  When presented on a programme with his fellow CALF animators, whose work often explores deep and troubling psychological issues, Mizue’s films lift up the spirits with their warm colour palettes and they inspire audiences with their creativity.  Thanks in part to the Pascals’ upbeat soundtrack, WONDER is Mizue’s most joyous film to date.  The colours dance across the screen with an ease that belies the tremendous amount of hard work and dedication that went into its meticulous execution. 

WONDER will be screened along with 14 other shot by Mirai Mizue at the Human Trust Cinema Shibuya on February 22^nd.  They are also hosting an exhibition of the animator’s illustrations called WONDER FULL until the end of the month.  Learn more at the official website WONDER FULL.  Clips of the film from the WONDER 365 ANIMATION PROJECT can be found of Mizue’s official Vimeo and Youtube profiles.  Keep an eye out for WONDER at international festivals because it is a real treat for the senses when seen on the big screen.

2014 Catherine Munroe Hotes

Coicent (コイ☆セント, 2011)

The year is 2710 and the city of Nara is celebrating the 2000^th anniversary of the relocation of the capital city of Japan to Nara.  A larger-than-life hologram of the legendary Queen Himiko (170-248AD) of Wa (ancient Japan) welcomes visitors in the style of a modern day tourist group leader.  Teenager Shinichi (Kensho Ono) and his buddy are enraptured by Himiko’s beauty and hope that they will meet girls as beautiful as her during their stay in Nara.  Before he can get very far, a strange white shika deer (Kappei Yamaguchi) steals his bag and Shinichi gives chase.

In a parallel story we learn that Himiko has been brought back to life by Madame President (Masako Isobe) using a mysterious robotic technology for a purpose that is equally mysterious.  But as in many a sci-fi story (Chobits, Yokohama Todaishi Kikō, Time of Eve), this android-human hybrid develops her own feelings and desires.  Himiko tries to escape her creator and her two henchmen sons (Aniki is voice by Testsu Inada and Otōto by Takehito Koyasu) who resemble clowns seem more powerful because they are riding on red and blue oni (demons).  Our heroine climbs out of the giant President’s building and through the bumbling of one of the henchmen brothers gets knocked falls from the tower onto the back of the white shika deer where she is inadvertently “rescued” by Shinichi.  Himiko disguises her identity by transforming herself into a teenage girl called "Toto" and Shinichi is awestruck.  They tour Nara together and begin to fall in love.  Will this teenage romance have a happy ending or will Himiko be recaptured by her creator Madame President?  It’s a wild and unpredictable, but thoroughly entertaining journey easily enjoyed at just 26 minutes.  Be sure to watch the end credits or else you will miss out on the dancing shika!!

When Sunrise animation studio announced Coicent (コイ☆セント/Koi☆sento, 2011) back in 2010, they dubbed it a “super science-fiction romantic comedy” (ANN), and it certainly does have a smattering of each of those genres.  It’s a fantastic blend of old Japan, new Japan, and future Japan, with skyscrapers, shrines and Buddha statues cropping up close together like the layers on a pop-up storybook.  Viewers unfamiliar with the historical and mythological figures and symbols might be scratching their head at the goings on, but die-hard anime-fans are used to head-scratching.  The central character, Shinichi, scratches his own head quite a bit as he is thrown from one surprising scenario into the next and we as the audience go through a similar range of emotions from bemusement to surprise and delight. The character designs and backgrounds are all spectacular.  

Shinichi's inadvertent rescue of Toto aka Himiko

The only drawback to Coicent for me is its unfortunate official “English” title.  I would have much preferred Koisento or Koi☆sento to this nonsense pseudo-English.  The title is a bit ambiguous in katakana, but I would presume that the “koi” is meant to be “love”.  “Sento” could be a number of things, but my educated guess from the context of the film is that it refers to the moving of the capital (遷都).  The capital city of Japan has moved many times throughout history – its location was traditionally dependent upon where the emperor was living.  Tokyo has been the capital since 1868 (the beginning of the Meiji era).  Before that it was in Kyoto for nearly 7 centuries.  Nara was the capital during the reign of many emperors, the last being during the Nara Period up until the death of Emperor Kammu in 794. 

 

Cast dance sequence from the closing credits

Director Shūhei Morita (森田修平, b. 1978) was nominated this week for the Oscar for Best Animated Short for Possessions (九十九/Tsukumo), his contribution to the Short Peace (2013) omnibus.  Morita grew up in Nara – which would explain the wealth of imagery from both the historical and mythological past of the region – and graduated from Kyoto University of Art and Design in 2001.  He has done animation work for MTV Japan, the NHK, and Studio 4°C.  Since forming his own studio Yamato-Works in 2003 he was been developing his own independent animation vision in collaboration with other production companies. 

Coicent can be found on Hulu in the US.  In the US it also shares a Blu-ray with the short anime Five Numbers! (ノラゲキ！, Hiroki Ando, 2011): Coicent / Five Numbers [Blu-ray]. The film has its own stand-alone DVD and Blu-ray in Japan:

Koisento DVD or Blu-ray (JP only, no EN subs or dubs)

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2014

Direct Animation for the Tablet Generation

The immediacy of tablet touchscreen technology has revolutionised how we interact creatively with computers.  In the realm of animation, The NFB (National Film Board of Canada) has been at the forefront of harnessing this new technology not only by making much their back catalogue of films available to view online via smart phone and tablet apps, but by creating tablet apps that make it easier than ever before for amateurs to try their hand at animating their own films.  They first did this through the development of their PixStop Stop Motion Animation App for iPad and this past summer they released a new free app: McLaren’s Workshop.

Named after the pioneering experimental animation Norman McLaren, this app allows users to create their own short animation and post it exclusively on Vimeo.  In addition to inspiring users with the biography and films of Norman McLaren, the App features three workshops: Paper Cut-Out, Etching on Film, and Synthetic Sound.   Norman McLaren is one of the very few early animators to experiment extensively with direct animation – also known as drawn-on-film animation or cameraless animation – in which artists draw or etch directly onto a filmstrip. 

The McLaren’s Workshop app, allows users to make their own direct animation or cut-out animation on the surface of the iPad.  The resulting films that I have seen on video definitely have a McLaren feel to them – not just because of their look but but because the soundtracks clearly come from McLaren films.  Koji Yamamura’s Five Fire Fish, is clearly an homage to the direct animation of McLaren with recognizable visual motifs from Blinkity Blank (1955).  The cut-outs and soundtrack in Regina Pessoa’s film are from Le merle (1958).

As part of the online promotional campaign, several  top directors were given free reign to make 30-60 second animations using the app:

Five Fire Fish (Koji Yamamura, 2013)

Five Fire Fish by Koji Yamamura - McLaren's Workshop App from National Film Board of Canada on Vimeo.

Cyclop(e)  (Patrick Doyon, 2013)

Cyclop(e) by Patrick Doyon - McLaren's Workshop App from National Film Board of Canada on Vimeo.

Day Sleeper (Don Hertzfeld, 2013)

Day Sleeper by Don Hertzfeldt - Mclaren's Workshop App from National Film Board of Canada on Vimeo.

Barcode Transmission (Renaud Hallée, 2013)

Barcode Transmission by Renaud Hallée - McLaren's Workshop App from National Film Board of Canada on Vimeo.

I Am Alone and My Head is On Fire (David O'Reilly, 2013)

I Am Alone and My Head Is On Fire by David OReilly - McLaren's Workshop App from National Film Board of Canada on Vimeo.

Bon App (Regina Pessoa,2013)

Bon App by Regina Pessoa - McLaren's Workshop App from National Film Board of Canada on Vimeo.

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2013

Hatsumi (ハツミ, 2012)

Hatsumi: One Grandmother’s Journey Through the Japanese Canadian Internment (2012)

ハツミ：日系人強制収容所を経験した祖母の人生の旅路 

Tonight sees the launch of the DVD of Chris Hope’s moving documentary Hatsumi: One Grandmother’s Journey Through the Japanese Canadian Internment (2012) at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre (JCCC) in Toronto.  Since the official Japanese Canadian Redress in 1988 many Nikkei have come forward to tell their stories of forced relocation.  In recent years, at the prompting of their children and grandchildren, many more stories have come to light that add to our understanding of this dark chapter in British Columbia’s history.

Many of the adults who experienced the forced internment have been reluctant to speak of their experiences.  In his animated documentary Minoru: Story of Exile; for example, Michael Fukushima speaks of “those silences” which are such “a large part of [his] identity.”  In Hatsumi, Chris Hope attributes those silences to the notion of shikata ga nai (仕方がない).  This expression literally means “it cannot be helped” and is generally used to describe circumstances that our beyond one’s control.  In North America, the idiom has often been used to explain how the Japanese were able to maintain their dignity in the face of the unavoidable circumstances they found themselves in after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Chris Hope describes how he often tried over the years to get his Nisei “Nana”, Nancy Hatsumi Okura, to tell him about her wartime experiences but that she was unwilling to share the whole painful story.  On the occasion of her eightieth birthday, after her stroke and recovery, Hope decides that the time has come to try to one last time to preserve Nancy Hatsumi's story for posterity.  Okura’s decision to tell her story reveals a wealth of information about herself and her immediate family that had previously remained in photo albums, diaries, and written correspondence.

Told in a straight-forward, first person documentary style, what makes Hope’s film stand out from previous films about the internment experience is his family’s remarkable archive.  His late Issei grandfather, Kenji "Ken" Okura, was an avid photographer and documented his family and his community in remarkable photographs and home videos both before and after the war.  He even managed to smuggle his camera into internment with him and documented his experiences as a forced labourer in Jasper. 

A young, well-to-do Vancouver couple with an infant daughter, both Ken and Nancy Hatsumi kept detailed journals of their experiences from the moment they sold off their dry cleaning business to move to Telegraph Cove on Vancouver Island at the beginning of the war.  Hope first tries to get his grandmother to tell her story by having her read parts of her journal out loud but she finds it too painful.  He changes tack and offers to take her to British Columbia to retrace her wartime journey.    

In the 1940s, Telegraph Cove was a quiet fishing village but today is a centre for ecotourism.  The wooden home that Ken Okura built still stands in the village and can be rented by tourists (see: Okura House).  As Nancy Hatsumi tours the house for the first time in over sixty years, the memories come flooding back as if it was yesterday.  An historical plaque dedicated to the Okuras marks the house and she is even able to meet with former neighbours who still live in the cove.  The passage of time has done nothing to dampen the feelings of both parties of the injustice done to the Okuras when they were given only three hours notice to throw together the possessions that they could carry before being shipped off to internment camps.

Hope and his grandmother also visit the unwelcoming livestock building that was used to house the women and children after they were separated from their husbands.  The building looks remarkably unchanged and brings home the inhumanity of how these Canadian citizens were treated by their own government.  Through historical documents such as NFB propaganda films and archival photographs, Hope demonstrates how a terrible combination of fear, ignorance, racism, and greed brought about this shameful injustice.

The most moving moment in the film comes when Chris Hope discovers that his grandmother’s brother, whom she always spoke of in the past tense, is still alive and living in Japan.  At the end of the war, the Japanese were still forbidden from returning to the Pacific Coast and were given two options: to move elsewhere in Canada or to return to Japan.  Nancy Hatsumi’s parents and siblings chose to return to Japan.  Eventually her parents and sisters returned to Canada, but her brother Tadao Hashimoto stayed on in the small city of Gobō in Wakayama Prefecture. 

Hashimoto suffered the most out of all of his family.  Born with childhood glaucoma, the forced internment meant that the family lost the means to pay for his medical treatment and he ended up going blind.  The blind have a special status in Japan – it has the largest Braille library in the world – and since the Tokugawa period blind people have traditionally been trained as anma masseurs.    Hashimoto received an education in Japan and had a successful career as a shiatsu masseur. 

Like his sister, Hashimoto proves reluctant to dwell on the past.  The subtle cultural differences between Canada and Japan raise their head in this sequence with confusion over what to say when entering the house and Hope’s inability to sit Japanese style.  Hope speaks only a few words of Japanese and Hashimoto has lost most of his English, so Nancy Hatsumi acts as the interpreter. In another example of shikata ga nai, Hashimoto is ambivalent towards the internment.  Although he has every right to be angry and bitter, Hashimoto seems content with how his life turned out.  Upon leaving, Nancy Hatsumi displays her “Canadianness” when they leave by embracing and kissing her brother and sister-in-law.   This moving reunion between a brother and sister after more than half a century brings home the terrible wrong done to them by the wartime government.  

With Hatsumi, Chris Hope has created an invaluable record of his grandmother and her family.  She is their last living link to traditional Japanese culture as Japanese Canadians rarely marry other Japanese (see: One Big Hapa Family).  At the same time, the film is an important contribution to the education of current and future generations of Canadians.  Not only does the film teach us about the past, Hope points out that Nancy Hatsumi’s courage in difficult times demonstrates that “the past should never limit a positive outlook for the future.”

Hatsumi is currently available to order via Amazon Canada.

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2012

Minoru: Memory of Exile (ミノル：逃亡のメモリー, 1992)

“Let our slogan be for British Columbia: No Japs from the Rockies to the sea.”

These were the words famously spoken by Ian Alistair Mackenzie the Liberal Cabinet Minister for Vancouver Centre during the 1944 federal election.  After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Mackenzie had played a key role in the government's decision to intern Japanese-Canadians living on the Pacific coast for the duration of the war.  In the 1970s and 1980s literature and film began to surface addressing the injustices suffered by Japanese-Canadians in British Columbia.  Pierre Burton addressed the subject on his television show and the materials presented were published by Janice Patton in her book The Exodus of the Japanese: Stories from the Pierre Burton Show (1973) and journalist Ken Adachi wrote The Enemy That Never Was: A History of the Japanese Canadians (1976).  Two semi-autobiographical works, Shizuye Takashima’s A Child in Prison Camp (1971) and Joy Kogawa’s novel Obasan (1981), have become staples in the Canadian classroom because of the moving way that they tell their stories from the point of view of a child.

Since Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s official apology to the victims of this abuse of human rights in 1988, many Nisei, Sansei, and more recently Yonsei have come forward to share their family stories.  Michael Fukushima’s animated documentary Minoru: Memory of Exile (1992) was one of the first of the post-redress films.  His proposal to make an animation based upon his father Minoru Fukushima’s story landed on the desk of William Pettigrew at the NFB at about the same time that they were contacted by the Japanese Canadian Redress Secretariat (JCRS) about the possibility of funding educational films about the internment.

Fukushima did not learn of his father’s experiences until the issue of redress raised his head in the late 1980s.  According to the film’s first-person narration, in the fall of 1987, at the age of 26, Fukushima asked his father for the first time about his childhood.  Fukushima’s guiding voice is interwoven with the voice of his father and accompanied by traditional Japanese music played on the shamisen, koto, and taiko. The animation uses a variety of media including cutouts, paintings, and photographs.

The past and the present are also interwoven through Fukushima’s use of relics of the past in the form of family and archival photographs and archival documents.  As Minoru begins to tell of his happy early childhood in Vancouver, the image of Minoru as a child comes to life in a faded family photograph.  A colourful cutout of Minoru jumps out of the picture and leads us through archival photographs of Vancouver’s city streets.  Minoru looks back fondly on his childhood in Vancouver.  He describes how his parents ran their grocery store for almost 20 years from when they arrived in Canada until their internment.

Minoru speaks of how they were sheltered as children from news of the war.    Even the internment camp didn’t seem that bad to the kids: it was almost like a summer camp and he recalls learning how to swim there.  This is a sentiment shared by renowned environmentalist David Suzuki in his 2007 eponymous autobiography, who wrote that his love of nature was came from the idyllic time he spent in the interior of British Columbia – a time when he was blissfully unaware of the hardships endured by his parents until after the war.   

It is not until the end of the war that things take a turn for the worse.  The Fukushima family discovers that despite being Canadian citizens, they must make a choice of moving somewhere outside of British Columbia in Canada or be deported back to Japan.  It turns out that the internment of Japanese-Canadians ignited “long-standing anti-Japanese sentiments” and local merchants, fishermen, and farmers supported the government in the seizing of all Japanese property and liquidating it.  The funds raised from the sale of their property was used to fund the cost of their own internment.

Minoru: Memory of Exile by Michael Fukushima, National Film Board of Canada

Uncertain as to what would be best for the family Minoru’s father decides to take the Japan option although Minoru and his siblings cannot speak any Japanese and are Canadian citizens.  They return to their father’s village where they encounter poverty and resentment by the locals who see them as foreigners.  By the time Canada reverses its policy on Japanese Canadians in the late 1940s because of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, their family it too poor to be able to afford the journey back to British Columbia.  In a case of bitter irony, when the Korean War breaks out in 1950, the Canadian government tries to recruit the same Japanese-Canadians they had banished a few years earlier.  Minoru jumps at the chance along with about 40 others and thus begins his journey back to the only country that ever felt like home to him – despite the injustice and racism he experienced there. 

Minoru: Memory of Exile is an early example of an animated documentary – a medium that has become more common nowadays with great films like Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman, 2008) and Ryan (Chris Landreth, 2004).  It demonstrates the unique ability of animation to express things with greater depth and poignancy than mere archival footage or interview footage could ever do.  The animation fills the “silences” that Fukushima speaks of as being a large part of his identity as a Sansei Canaidan.  Following in his footsteps, Yonsei Canadian animator/documentary filmmaker Jeff Chiba Stearns also used animation to bring to life his Uncle Suey Koga’s stories about the internment in his feature length documentary One Big Hapa Family (read review). 

Michael Fukushima directed at least one other animation at the NFB before beginning his transition into becoming a producer.  Over the past decade he has built a reputation over as one of Canada’s top animation producers.  Minoru: Memory of Exile shows us his roots as an artist in his own right.  It is both informative and moving in how it tells the story of Minoru.   A warm tribute from a son in recognition of the sacrifices made by both his father and his grandparents to enable him to grow up Canadian.  

Related Reading: Michael Fukushima: The Art of Producing Art

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2012

direction/design/animation

Michael Fukushima

narration

Minoru Fukushima

Michael Fukushima

animation assistance/colour rendering

Faye Hamilton

producer

William Pettigrew

additional colour rendering

Colette Brière

sound design

Normand Roger

taiko

John Endo Greenaway

koto

Teresa Kobayashi

shakuhachi

Takeo Yamashiro

animation camera

Jacques Avoine

Ray Dumas

Lynda Pelley

re-recording

Jean-Pierre Joutel

apprentice mixer

Terry Mardini