Yamamura, K. (2002). Atama Yama. Tokyo, Japan: Shochiku Films.
Atama Yama is an animated short film by Kōji Yamamura based on a traditional Japanese Rakugo1 story. The narrative is about a stingy2 man who picks up dropped cherries from the street. As he considers it a waste to throw away even the cherry stones he decides to eat them. A small cherry tree starts to grow out of his head. When the tree blossoms it attracts people who celebrate the traditional Japanese cherry blossom season on top of his head. Annoyed by the festivities the man removes the tree with its roots. This results in a hole that fills with water. The new pond on his head attracts another crowd. In a moment of histerical delusion the man runs up a mountain and finds himself looking into the pond on his own head. He throws himself into the water and drowns.
Yamamura’s (2002) animation is a very important influence on my project. The depiction of a surreal situation with notions of insanity and hallucination is thematically very close to my project that seeks to explore the borderland between reality and illusion and its visual representation. The format of this animated short film of ten minutes and the effect of time limitations to the complexity of a narrative also require my close attention.
I have seen Yamamura’s film for the first time at the Melbourne International Film Festival in 2003. It left a deep impression on me that lead to many further viewings over the years. I am certain that this animation was a major indirect influence to the choice of my area of research. Depictions of illusion and the surreal have always caused strong fascination on me3. I regard Atama Yama as a genre masterpiece in terms of visualisations and narrative design. The film visually succeeds to make the audience enter the protagonist’s head. It alternates between shots from the main characters point of view and extreme close-ups of his face. Hardly ever can we see his entire body. This creates a nearly intimate physical and in effect psychological closeness to the protagonist. To contrast this the filmmaker makes efforts to keep a certain distance between audience and the character. The voiceover of the narrator4 constantly reminds us that this is a told story. My story idea also includes segments with a point of view perspective in crucial dream and hallucinatory sequences. Close-ups and focus on details as applied in Atama Yama will be another area of visual experimentation that I have not considered yet.
The duration of Yamamura’s film seems adequate to tell the story. It allows the audience enough time to immerse into the narrative and to learn about the protagonist. The story keeps moving forward without lengthy segments and comes to a timely end without rushing things. To me the pace is ideal even though it seems slower than many contemporary films. The pace and complexity of my short film requires closer consideration. Animator Don Hertzfeldt (2006) writes:
One of the most important and difficult challenges is being able to swallow your pride and chop out the stuff that honestly isn‘t working, despite how much blood you‘ve poured into it. Even if it was other people‘s blood. […] What you take out is often more important than what you leave in.
Improvements to my story will involve the reduction of complexities to its feasible essence so that the film does not exceed the aspired 15 minutes.
Footnotes
1 A narrative art originating in 16th century Japan; a single narrator tells comical, often grotesque and surreal stories in form of a monologue using a minimalistic set of props (Miyoko & Heinz, 1981).
2 The narration calls the man ‘stingy’, but visually the animation depicts a man with a compulsive hording disorder, a condition signified by an excessive form of collecting items and the difficulty to discard or let go of possessions (Pertusa et al., 2010, pp. 371 - 373).
3 I was first introduced to surreal images of Magritte and Dali in art class at grammar school which by the time inspired me to create paintings with surreal themes. I continue to enjoy art and especially narratives that live in the borderland between reality and illusion, such as the films A Pure Formality (Tornatore, 1994), Being John Malkovich (Jonze, 1999), Pan’s Labyrinth (Toro, 2006), the animations by Hayao Miyazaki and the graphic novels by Marc-Antoine Mathieu.
4 The voice alternates between spoken text and a singsong which reminds more of Japanese narrative arts such as Kabuki theatre.
References
Hertzfeldt, D. (2006, June 3). FAQ. Bitter Films. Retrieved June 3, 2006, from http://www.bitterfilms.com/faq.html
Jonze, S. (1999). Being John Malkovich. London, United Kingdom: United International Pictures.
Miyoko, S., & Heinz, M. (1981). Rakugo: Popular Narrative Art of The Grotesque. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 41(2), 417-459.
Pertusa, A., Frost, R. O., Fullana, M. A., Samuels, J., Steketee, G., Tolin, D., Saxena, S., et al. (2010). Refining the diagnostic boundaries of compulsive hoarding: A critical review. Clinical Psychology Review, 30(4), 371-386. doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2010.01.007
Tornatore, G. (1994). A pure formality. Culver City, CA: Sony Pictures.
Toro, G. D. (2006). Pan's labyrinth. Los Angeles, CA: New Line Cinema.
Yamamura, K. (2002). Atama Yama. Tokyo, Japan: Shochiku Films.
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