Jumping

Director: Osamu Tezuka
Country: Japan
Date: 1984
Runtime: 6 minutes
Format: .avi

Osamu Tezuka is probably most known for his work on Metropolis and Astro Boy. I won't talk much about him because there's a hefty wikipedia page about him that you can read.

What I will talk about is his series of animation shorts that he did during his career. From what I believe there was a DVD release of those films or something like that but I didn't really check (I got all this from Surreal Moviez). Over the next few months or so (I honestly can't tell how long this "series" of posts will last) I'll be sharing them and offer quick insights. There are also some extra stuff that I'll probably post when I finish with main ones.

The feature for today is an experimental animated journey called Jumping. The title really explains it all and there's not much story here apart from some small symbolism. What's interesting here is the animation, small details and the effect it makes. The camera is always in first person so it might get dizzy at times.

With the animation itself I included the commentary video of how this was all made and so on because things like these require context like that.

Download.

Glassy Ocean

Time for kawaii ~nyan~ moe things! Or not. Or maybe! Depends on the viewer.

Director: Tamura Shigeru
Year of release: 1998
Country: Japan
Format/Subtitles: .avi/hardcoded English subtitles
Runtime: 23 minutes

Glassy Ocean is a short animated movie from Japan that I think is quite peculiar. To me this is more of a visual poetry than a narrated story. There seems to be two worlds here. One where everything is moving but is black and white, people are small universes (that's at least how I perceived it) and so on but there is also another, parallel, world where everything moves really, really slow. Both worlds are connected via ocean while one side views it as a constant moving thing the other side views it as a field of slow moving green glass. The "story" follows an event that both worlds are able to respectively observe which is an emergence of a whale.

Animations and movies like this usually polarize people's opinions because of its lack of coherence and firm narrative. I watched this a few years ago and didn't really enjoy it despite liking the art but recently I watched it again and now I think I enjoyed much better. I think that book Tarkovsky wrote helped but this is getting a bit off topic. There are a lot of subtle contemplative moments of life that can be observed here and that's probably why I like it so much. The beauty of surrealist art (for me) is that it can be interpreted in many ways and it actually depends on the viewer how it will be perceived. The focus here is more on the beauty and poetry of things rather than telling a strict coherent message. This makes this short film very relaxed in tone and pacing.

This is also a very beautifully crafted animated film with CGI and hand drawn animation. The sea is CG while the characters are hand drawn which gives them a lot warmth and energy. They felt alive and their soothing voices help a lot with this overall relaxed tone. Everything is in this peaceful zen-like state that strangely affects you as well if you're willing to let yourself go for these twenty minutes.

Overall I don't think this is the best thing ever made but I enjoyed it and maybe you will as well, if you're into this sort of thing.

Part one and two.

Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade

Length: 01:41:59
Format/Subtitles: .MP4 / English .srt subtitles
Audio: Japanese
Director: Hiroyuki Okiura
Writer: Mamoru Oshii
Year of release: 1999
Wikipedia

Despite the mp4 format the video quality is great, the size is after all 1.6 gb so don't worry about quality.

In order to recuperate from my Valkyria adventure I decided to revisit another anime movie that I dearly liked. The movie itself is essentially a military thriller and a nice insight into the mind of a soldier (unlike some animes that I might mention, oh - ho - ho, pretension etc.) but there's very little actual combat (something of a Mamorus trademark).

The story is set in a dystopian alternate timeline where Japan didn't do very well after singing the defeat with the Americans. So in the turmoil and chaos of rebuilding the nation a wide migration to the cities occurred and so a lot slums appeared. Naturally a lot people started breaking the law along with forming various anti-government guerrilla factions etc. Shit hit the fan. Cops on the other hand didn't know what it's like so they did the only natural thing to do which was - more cops. But these were a special breed of police force on par with the military called Panzer Cops (according to wikipedia, but translations vary).

So these guys basically didn't fuck around, carried heavy weapons and arrested everyone with machine gun bullets. In the middle of all this comes our protagonist who's in one of those brigades doing his job like everybody else. As with all jobs unexpected yet expected things (I don't want to spoil it too much so I won't say what) happen and yeah, he needs to deal with it.

Since the story is written by Mamoru Oshii (Ghost In The Shell etc.) you can expect it to be much more than just what I wrote. As usual with his way of storytelling there are a lot of things happening at the same time and not much is being said - they are being showed through subtle actions and reactions of characters. But there is much more plot exposition here through words compared to the rest of his work so it's not that hard to follow what's going on unlike some other of his works. This is probably because of the director who carried the whole movie out.

The movie deals with a lot of problems of morality and the line where we just stop and rethink why are we serving whatever system we are serving and why the hell are we doing this. There's a very noticeable feel of depression and nihilism between the two main protagonists throughout the whole movie. On the surface they just don't really give a shit anymore about who's right or wrong. It wears people down and they portray it really well. It's an internal struggle whether you'll plunge completely into the beast or resurface as a human and live a more normal life.

The movie has a lot of great ideas and messages and it portrays them very well thanks to the combined job of the director and the writer. Both aren't new in this so they know what they are doing and they do it marvelously in all aspects. This is also very apparent in the art style which is somewhere between Akira and later Mamoru Oshiis work. Since the plot is set in post-war Japan there really is not much space to be imaginative but they manage to make all the backgrounds compelling and believable as locations. Lots of short alleys, mass built buildings and blue collar outfits that everyone seems to wear. It all looks very believable and it's enjoyable to look but also depressing as well.

I would love to go into much more detail with this movie but I don't want to spoil the plot for those who didn't watch it so all I can do is share the links and hopefully you'll find this movie as great as I did.

Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11.

Neo Tokyo (迷宮物語/Meikyû Monogatari)

Length: 00:50:02
Format/Subtitles: .avi / soft English .srt subtitles
Directors:
Rintaro
Yoshiaki Kawajiri
Katsuhiro Ôtomo
Year of release: 1989
Wikipedia

Neo Tokyo is a triple feature from three distinct directors. For anyone that's into anime this will probably be an enjoyable 50 minute ride. For those who are into a little more experimental or different anime they will certainly enjoy it. And who would not enjoy anything that Katsuhiro Otomo ever did? Yes, I'm a fan. :P

You can read the story synopsis on Wikipedia so I won't really bother with the details of the plot and I'll just describe my enjoyments/nonenjoyments of this triple feature. The running  theme of all three movies is that our protagonist (different in each story) by accident or on purpose discovers something fantastic and supernatural and he decides to explore this. The first part is perhaps the most surreal one and it ties (more like stitches) the plot of the whole thing into one place giving it some kind of opening and closure.

A girl plays hide and seek with cat only to discover this strange world which is basically your old school metaphor of: jobs consume people and turn them into puppets in Japan. Very punk and I especially liked the train station scene where a bunch of skeletons are desperately trying to hold onto their hooks while the train mercilessly drags them forward. The art of it is also very distinct here compared to the other two. It has a very European look (to me) and the characters seem very childish in comparison to the background environments.


The second feature is about a journalist who is doing a story about an undefeated racer who races in this death sport that is some mixture of nascar and formula 1. This segment is probably the most dark of the three and the most atmospheric in general. Most of the plot is narrated through telling and not through showing so it took me two views to understand most of it so don't get annoyed if you don't get it. Just watch it once more and you'll probably get most of it. The whole setting of it reeks of film noir cinema interplay between light and dark. The general art of this short is so reminiscent of Katsuhiro's style that I thought he directed this but it turns out Katsuhiro only did the third (and the longest I think) part.

The last kept reminding me that I need to play System Shock 2 or Bioshock. The story is placed in a industrial city deep in the amazon forest. The inhabitants are only robots who are supposed to mine some material there. Of course something went wrong and they sent someone to shut the city down. As expected the whole thing is drawn and visualized beautifully reminding me much of Akira's landscapes and towering buildings. Lot's of pipes, cables and robots swarming around which is just what I enjoy and Katshiro apparently as well. The main problem that I had with this story is perhaps its childish approach (or maybe I just expected another Akira out of this one). A minor nuisance anyway.

Just like Robot Carnival this is something really nice and overlooked (I never see any discussions about this anime) by everyone. It does not deliver a complex and deep story but it has its unique and interesting appeal which is not to be missed if you like anime. I don't really know what to say; just get this already. :P


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Part 7

Georges Schwizgebel - L'homme sans ombre (The Man with No Shadow)

A man one day decides his life is boring and unsatisfying. He leaves his home and lurks the streets looking for someone. He eventually reaches to a prestigious garden where a man in a red suit awaits. He offers to our protagonist riches and happiness at the cost of his shadow. He accepts and gets his riches but how will others react to his lack of shadow? Discrimination, alienation? How much will he miss this one simple thing?

That's how the story starts in this short 10~ minute animated movie from a Swiss director Georges Schwizgebel and it is one of the better animated movies I saw this year (that wasn't made in this year). The plotline is seemingly stereotypical with all too known story where a man sells his soul (or shadow in this case) to the devil but it is not that quite generic. In fact it's rather interesting because it has another view on the whole situation. First of all this is just a shadow, it's not something you will not be able to enter heaven nor you will be forsaken in hell. It shows how much people discriminate and judge different people who lack something that "everyone has". But it also show how we take little things for granted every day until we lose them irreversibly. Unlike a lot of stories of this type where characters in the end repent for what they did, burn in hell or trick the devil this takes on a more interesting and more survivalist way to develop and end.

The overall look of the movie is completely amazing and exceptionally impressionistic. It looks like it was mostly done with oil and coal(?). Something like a moving painting on canvas. Since shadows are the main drive force for the story there's a lot of play on shapes and lights/shadows. Constantly the camera spins and changes angles so that it emphasizes on shapes and moving shades. One scene starts with a box with camera revolving around it and then it constructs itself into a bigger box, then into a building, then it multiplies and forms a city and so on. Fascinating and fairly original approach but sometimes way to energetic and disorienting. Perhaps that was intended?

In any case; not to be missed.

Download.

René Laloux - Les temps morts (Dead Times)

René Laloux was a very influential French animator in his time and still is. A long time ago on this blog I posted his Fantastic Planet which was his first film that I had the chance to see and incidentally it's his most famous one (perhaps even his best).

Dead Times on the other hand was his first attempt at cinema (according to imdb) way back in 1964. It's a short 9 minute film about humans and their fascination with death and everything related to it. Sort of an satire to our way of living and how much we associate everything with death. The scenes are surreal but are very clear with what they represent in reality. The whole movie is told from someone that is not from our planet. In a way an anthropological study of us and our lives (or our killing of everything more accurately).

While this constitutes as an animated film there are also a lot of live footage and still images (something like in La Jetée). There are few glimpses of how will Rene evolve his way of animation but here this is still very crude and primitive. It does not take away from the atmosphere in any way despite that. Certainly an interesting voyage if you like other Rene's works or surreal films.

Download.

Yuriy Norshteyn - Hedgehog in the mist

This whole day was filled with fog. The only thing I could see out from my window were three light poles and a beaming church tower that struck the clock every now and then. This made me think of this nostalgic animated film from Russia that was made back in the 70s.

Being a short movie the plot doesn't develop to some great depths. A hedgehog and a bear each night meet and they drink tea while they count the stars. One foggy night the hedgehog gets a bit lost and meets a certain beautiful creature in the fog. He dwells deeper and deeper into the fog meeting all kinds of things unknown to him. Through his journey an owl follows him around calling him a lunatic simply because the owl does not understand the hedgehogs appreciation for beauty.

A fitting movie for this day and mood. It's very unorthodox when compared to animated films from the west at the time.

According to Wikipedia there's a statue of the hedgehog from this movie in Kiev. I would really like to see that one day.

Part 1 and 2.

The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (Сон смешного человека)

Year of release: 1992
Director: Aleksandr Petrov
Genre: Drama
Duration: 20 min
Language: Russian (with separated English subtitles)

Whenever I want to write this I get interrupted. >_>

The Dream of a Ridiculous Man is a short story by Fyodor Dostoevsky written in 1877. It chronicles the experiences of a man who decides that there is nothing to live for in the world, and is therefore determined to commit suicide. A chance encounter with a young girl changes his mind.

What we have here is an animated version of Fyodor's story. I didn't read the book so I can't really tell you how much it is different from the movie but I can tell you that the setting and the overall feel of the whole movie is very much macabre (I guess that would be the appropriate word?). Be it good or bad it's up to you to decide.

What really stands out here is the art and the technique of the animation. In the most simplest way of explaining I guess you could say that this whole movie is an moving oil painting. That's at least how I look at it anyway. :P At some parts the animation can get a little weak with only just three or four frames showing movement but for the most part it's fluidity is not that much compromised. Honestly speaking I never quite saw anything like this animated so if you aren't interested in the story you can at least check if out for the unique way of how this was done.

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It should work now. Either just extract everything with 7zip or join with hj split and then extract with zip or winrar.

VIDEOGIOCO by Donato Sansone

MUTO

Kigeki

Yet another amazing animated short film.

Since my hard drive died I'm unable to upload this properly but you can watch this in high quality on Youtube so don't complain. :P

La Maison en Petits Cubes

Second part here.

Franz Kafka's Ein Landarzt (A Country Doctor)

Year of release: 2007
Director: Koji Yamamura
Genre: Drama/Psychological
Duration: 21 min
Language: Japanese (English subtitles)

When someone mentions animation or anime that is related to Japan it usually means big eyed moe girls with high pitched voices that are 18 but look like 9. This is sadly true, most anime are like that because the audience demands this and the production houses deliver that in order to make money. But not all is everything like that. Since their animation culture flourishes a lot there are still plenty of astonishing visual experiences.

This particular anime is - unique. Forget everything you ever saw from Japan because this one is completely different and completely surreal. Perfectly fit for a Kafkas story. The motion of characters, the background drawings, the eerie sounds of nature they all blend into this marvelous work so much that I could not believe what I'm watching. So memorable yet so morbid and scary.

I'll stop my drooling here. In any case this is an adaptation of a short prose by Kafka called Ein Landarzt which translates to "A Country Doctor". The story is about an a hapless country doctor that was called by the night bell emergency to visit a young patient. Events soon take on a surreal aspect as "unearthly horses" transport him instantaneously to the bedside. The doctor, preoccupied with personal distractions and grievances against those he is employed to care for, fails to find what is revealed to be a vile, fatal wound. He is humiliated by the villagers, who are "always expecting the impossible from the doctor," and doomed to an endless return trip, losing everything.

Highly recommended!

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Fantastic Planet (La Planète sauvage)

Year of release: 1973
Director: René Laloux
Genre: Surrealism
Duration: 72 min
Language: French (this is the English synchronized version)

IMDb

This is my birthday present (which I forgot to upload on the actual day of my birthday but doesn't matter) for you guys who read both blogs where I post. I'm thinking about posting one movie (anime counts too) that I like or have recently seen per week on this blog if people would actually download it. If you'd like this then please comment with feedback or some ideas if you have them.

Fantastic planet is an animated movie that was released back in 1973 in France. Back in the day it was quite popular but its fame faded away a long time ago and the movie is hardly mentioned these days. I think that Fantastic Planet is overlooked by the mainstream cinema mostly because of its surrealism. Almost nothing in landscape and objects resemble this world and the objects in the movie are thought out really well. The animation is something along the lines of those found in Monty Phytons Flying Circus series if not the same. The soundtrack is rather cheesy it practically screams stereotypic psychedelic rock but it fits in very well.

The story of the movie takes you to a planet where humans are kept like pets (Planet of the Apes? Not really like that.) and the world is ruled by blue giants with red eyes. This race of giants isn't warlike nor brutal but they treat humans as we do bugs and small mammals. The main character is a human and he actually tells a story of his life. I won't explain any further because of spoilers and besides there are much more better written reviews elsewhere.

All in all this is an great animation for all surreal and avant-garde fans.

Links:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9

You need HJ Split to patch this back into one file.