Animation of the week: Screenplay-Barry Purves

This is another one from my Christmas wish list, this time taken from the excellent first volume of the anthology DVD British Animation Classics (featuring some top notch independent animation which doesn't skimp on the female animators either-Joanna Quinn, Alison Snowden, Erica Russell, and Alison de Vere are all represented).

Purves is a master director, writer, and animator of mainly puppet based animation and has done work with countless animation studios including Aardman, Pixar, Dreamworks etc. Despite the fact that his own independent work only amounts to six short films he has been nominated for countless awards and is highly regarded in the British film and animation industry. He embraces a strong tradition of animation that stems from the likes of Ladislas Starewicz, Ray Harryhausen, George Pal, Lou Bunin, Jiri Trnka, etc, and carries on to the present day in the works of The Brothers Quay, the Bolex brothers, and Suzie Templeton (among others).

Screenplay is one of his two works that embraces the art and tradition of the setting for the story being told. The other example being Achilles which is obviously inspired by Greek art but is also staged like a Greek tragedy.

The title 'Screenplay' literally refers to the used of traditional Japanese screen painting as part of the storytelling process. The story is adapted from the legend of The Willow Pattern, a famous British ceramic pattern designed around 1790. The story is a Chinese romantic fable invented in England which follows the classic formula of star-crossed lovers of a different class who ultimately meet a tragic end.

Purves seems to create a fantastic sense of staging. The play part of the title is also highly appropriate as it feels like this is what we are watching, and the smoothness of the action and of the transitions almost make us forget that we are watching an animation. Scenery changes are swift and inventive and movement despite being stylised (due to the obvious influence of Kabuki theatre on the film, along with the English sign language narration) is fluid and believable. The use of everything from traditional umbrellas and pieces of material to represent everything from water to blood, and the constant use of a revolving/floor set keep the action confounded to one space very effectively.

It seems appropriate that Purves's films were chosen to be shown as part of a special season on Japanese puppet master Kicachiro Kawamoto back at the Watershed in Bristol in 2008, his influence on this film is very obvious although I think Purves adds a certain amount of wit to the tradition as well as making a massive improvement on the usual pacing. The action is quite fast but still you don't miss a beat. A truly beautiful piece of film!

(watch it here)

Review: Japan as viewed by 17 creators-Various artists (edited by Frederic Boilet)

This cross-cultural anthology is something of a gem. Imagine this for a dream assignment: Hello (insert your name here) how would you like to come to Japan to work on an anthology comic with sixteen other talented artists from Japan and France? Oh, and we'll pay all your travel and accommodation expenses too. As my flatmate sometimes says, 'I would sell my mother to the Arabs' for an opportunity like this. So what better way to live out your fantasies vicariously then by buying this anthology which features the cream of the crop when it comes to both the French and the Japanese alternative comic gene pool. This isn't a straight love letter to Japan, it's an anthology about culture shock, tradition, mythology, commercialism, and prejudice to name but a few things.
The connection between France and Japan is that France's love of comics meant that they embraced Manga with open arms meaning that France itself has a quite successful and extremely diverse Manga market. Perhaps because of the French's belief in comics as an art form, more niche forms of Manga such as adult/dramatic Manga, and avant-garde Manga are much more popular there. The French editor of this anthology, Frederic Boilet, fell in love with Japan so much that he moved there in 1993 and has been there ever since.
The first great thing about this anthology is that it gives you the chance to read a lot of work by artists (particularly the French ones) who it is usually very difficult, or very expensive, to get any of their work in English. I'm thinking of Fabrice Neaud who I've wanted to read ever since I glimpsed a snippet of his work in Ann Miller's Reading Bande Dessinee, Nicolas de Crecy, Francois Shuiten & Benoit Peeters, and Joann Sfar's journal comics.
Each artist is sent to a different host city (chosen at random by the French Institute in Japan) and asked to write a story about the area. This story can be fact or fiction and although a lot of the artists tend to stick to a personal travelogue approach we are also treated to history, myth, fantasy, and science-fiction along the way. As with the best anthologies there is a huge array of visual styles here. Perhaps the most traditionally 'Manga-like' artist (despite his adult themes) is Jiro Taniguchi, although elsewhere we do get to see manga's influence on the French artists, as in Aurelia Aurita's use of Manga style emotive iconography. Nicolas de Cercy's story is drawn in a style which manages to be frantic and scribbled yet at the same time clear, playfully explores the outlandish graphic design of Japanese products and presents us with a pretty satisfying twist to the story which will make you smile. Another highlight from the French quarter is Shuiten and Peeter's story-come-tourist brochure which showcases futuristic architecture, dizzying perspective, and a loving nod to the Japanese love of giant B movie insects. Out of the Japanese artists my favourite stories would have to be by Daisuke Igarashi who manages to combine fast paced action (being careful not to make his motion likes OTT like a lot of mainstream Manga artists) with unsettling surrealism, and alternative Manga golden boy Taiyo Matsumoto's(*1) traditional style folktale which evokes very early Manga and Eastern art while style maintaining his own idiosyncratic style. The use of single page panels also gives it the feel of a very Zen children's picture book.


It is Fabrice Neaud's entry to this anthology however that gives us the most scathing critique of Japanese culture. I read somewhere that Neud's journals are very clever because they manage to channel his personal experiences into a kind of mirror to society, his journal's although personal, are somehow political. In this entry it is Neaud's identity as a gay man that brings him to question the attitude towards homosexuality in the East. In his quest, the homosexual Asians are an invisible people, and although prejudice is not spoken of but it is clearly there. The topic of homosexuality comes up again briefly in Sfarr's journal entry when he sees what he thinks is an advert for a gay magazine in the Tokyo subway, only to find that it is in fact advertising porn manga for girls (apparently the gay male is a big female fantasy over there).
All in all this anthology is not just a reflection of the weird and wonderful Japan we hold up as alien to our own culture (love hotels, Harajuko girls, girl's underwear in vending machines) but of a very personal Japan to each artist. Do the artists in this anthology suffer from their own bouts of Orientalism or are they cynical and aware? I think capturing the excitement of being in a new culture and a new environment is an important thing and if an artist is successful in their storytelling we can feel this with them, and then later on their disappointments, their laughter, is also ours.
When I went to Tokyo three years ago I bought into the stereotype that Japanese people will often feign ignorance because they don't want to be asked questions by Westerners(*2), in this anthologies last story we meet a Japanese man who proves me wrong, warmly welcoming the French artist and showing him the sights, yet having a strange spirituality, an affinity with nature that gives this anthology a poignant and punchy end.
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(*1) Author/artist of Go Go Monster, No 5, Blue Springs, and most famously Tekkon Kinkreet: Black and White
(*2) I since felt stupid, realising that most people on the tube in London don't exactly talk to one another.

Comic Classics: Its Better With Your Shoes Off-Ann Cleveland

Anne Cleveland was a cartoonist working from the 1930's to the 1960's. She first started out drawing cartoons about college life (as she was at this time enrolled in Vassar College in New York), ESPECIALLY life for female students. She stayed on with the college art department after graduation where she met fellow graduate and future collaborator Jean Anderson. Although there are rumours that her work may have appeared in The New Yorker (her style suited the magazine perfectly at the time) the magazine itself has no records of this. Mainly she published a lot of cartoons about college life, as well as illustrations for The Ladies Home Journal and humorous home life type books (mainly in collaboration with other writers).
Her most famous book however, is one that I can now proudly say I own. Based on her own experiences living in Japan, It's better with your shoes off is a humorous look at the culture clash between East and West through the eyes of Mr and Mrs West (along with their two children). The title itself is a humorous nod to that most Japanese of rituals Rather than pandering to stereotypes, Cleveland spends as much time making fun of the Americans attempt to assimilate into Japanese life as she does making fun of the peculiarities of Japanese ritual and tradition. Her line work is beautiful, smooth, and almost resembles calligraphy in the way it flows. Most of the cartoons spare the details and instead work out a subtle humour for your pleasure, but when Cleveland gives us an expansive drawing the little details are everywhere. A personal favourite image of mine from the book is this double page spread of the traditional viewing of the cherry blossoms.

A lot of the images work in sequence, but not all are confined to the rigid conformity of the standard comics panel. The wordless images adds extra punch to the eventual punchline and the traditional gag cartoon format of caption over speech bubble adds to the sophisticated feel of the thing.
There are also some great dual images contrasting our perceived view of the East with the actual reality (the tourist brochure of the hot spring, and Mr Wests first geisha party).
Of course there is an element of nostalgia to the visual style of this book and also an extent to which the representations in the book have aged slightly. While not exactly showing a Japan of of the Edo period this books prompts the question: how much has the national character of Japan changed? Do they still hold on to their traditions so loyally? One of the few hints of a new Japan in this book is an image entitled 'cultural exchange' which shows the new face of the Japan, the youth. This was a post-war book put together at the beginnings of Japan's race to provide electronics and entertainment equipment to boost their economy, the race which has very much been won now. I wonder what a modern cartoonist would find on a similar cartoon journey of Japan? Certain aspects of this book are essentially timeless though, such as the guide to Japanese food for the uninitiated that she provides, and the 'shake or bow?' conundrum.
Despite the connotations in the title of this collection Cleveland does not lead us to believe that Eastern culture is better than Western culture or vice versa. She shows each to have their own unique pros and cons. Such a balanced view in a time when Japanmania was not yet in full swing (there's nothing more annoying than Gwen Staffani's 'Harajuku Girls'), makes this, along with the fantastic cartoons, an essential thing to own.