Customer Reviews

The Exquisite Short Films of Kihachiro Kawamoto

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These seven short features present an enchanting range of techniques, visual styles, and stories. All of them feature some amount of stop animation. Kawamoto creates an unusual combination, however, by placing his 3D puppets against 2D backgrounds. This gives the feel of a stage play, with live actors amid flat, painted scenery elements. Kawamoto reinforces that sense of theater in the puppets he creates. Some have faces like Noh masks, others resemble elaborate Kabuki makeup. And, many times, the puppets move in stylized ways that draw on Japan's rich tradition of theater.

The two last features, "Dojoji Temple" and "House of Flame" also have the feel of traditional storytelling. I don't know whether they actually retell familiar stories, or create new ones in the old style. No matter, the dragons, temple bells, and ghosts all draw on tales likely to be as familiar to Japanese viewers as they are unfamiliar to Westerners. Other stories, including "Anthropo-cynical Farce," "The Trip," and "The Poet's Life" present decidedly modern themes and stories, enriched by the Kawamoto's traditional elements. That combining of new and old comes to life in "The Trip's" Escher-like landscapes, and in the Poet's haunted sweater in a setting of Atomic-age tragedy.

These gorgeous short animations might baffle a Western eye - I know I had to just let go and follow along with some of the cultural references. These will please, too, as much for their unique stories and storytelling as for the loving craftsmanship shown in every detail. Kids might not have the patience for it, but I recommend this to every grown-up who enjoys animation.

-- wireweird

These animations are not for kids, but for grown ups who have a capability to understand what the realities of life and the art are. If you are a kind of person who seeks a "normal" moral story in films, you would be just confused by these works.
All of these short animations are wonderful and beautiful, but especially I like "demon""Dojoji Temple" and "House of Flame", which are animations with puppets deeply influenced by Ningyo-Joruri, a traditonal Japanese puppet theater, which preceded Kabuki, and it is a well-known fact that actors of early days of Kabuki theather imitated movements of those puppets.
Though those puppets are beautiful, what I was blown away the most were stories that could betray our expectations.

"Demon" - People who have suffered so much in their lives can turn out to be demons when they grow older.
"Dojoji Temple" - A great passion for a man can turn a woman out to be a horrible monster.
"House of Flame" - No mater how righteous and religious a person can be, he/she still go to hell. And this world we humans are living in now is already a hell for us.

First two are based on Japanese legends, "Dojoji Temple" is also one of Kabuki's very popular pieces, and the last one is from Noh theather.
As protagonists are all females, you may call these are sexist stories. Yes, just like in many of male dominated conservative traditional societies, in ancient Japan, women are considered unclean. But many artists have tried to capture sad, harsh, pathetic and helpless realities of a society and a life through women's existence who had been exploited by men and society, and they also tried to add some beauty to them. Kawamoto is one of them.

No matter how honest living you try to have,
no matter how many times you pray,
you still have to suffer from living a life.
whether you can accept it or not, that is a reality of a life.

Did this discourage you?
If so, his marvelous works are not for you.

Others on this DVD are impressive as well, and I really like "The Poet's Life"
which is like '20s proletariat novel meets '60s art film.

One disappointment is omission of "Briar Rose" and "Shoot without shooting",
both of them are included on the Japanese version of his collection CD.
Hoping more of his works will be released in U.S.

These films are very much of an Asian sensibility. There is an exquisite delicacy about them. Not
for everyone certainly but to be remembered long after a Hollywood special effects extravaganza.