Encounters/KOTATSU 2019: Takeshi Yashiro & Satoshi Akutsu
At last month’s Encounters Film Festival, on the final Saturday morning — that classic animation timeslot — Japanese stop-motion director Takeshi Yashiro and producer Satoshi Akutsu of TECARAT hosted a double-bill screening and Q&A. The event took place in collaboration with the Welsh-Japanese animation festival Kotatsu, which is held in Cardiff and Aberystwyth this month.
The screening comprised two of Yashiro’s short films: Moon of a Sleepless Night (2015) and his most recent work, Gon, The Little Fox (2019). The Q&A focussed on the latter animation, since the Encounters event was, in fact, one of the first times that it had been screened in a cinema setting, and both Yashiro and Akutsu were keen to get feedback. Within the theatre space, the two films met with an overwhelmingly positive response: I heard laughs, gasps and even a few tears around me before the lights came on. The event had drawn a diverse audience spanning a wide range of ages, with children, young adults, parents and grandparents in attendance.
Both Moon of a Sleepless Night and Gon, The Little Fox do a wonderful job of showcasing Yashiro’s strengths: the environment design, props and puppets are all gloriously realised. Even in the role of director, he is also a craftsman, which is evident in his lovingly created models and scenery. He prides himself on the fact that his works are ‘hand-crafted’ and ‘not too real’: “it’s important that they feel made by somebody”, he told the audience, passing around one of his carved wooden character puppets for attendees to hold and admire. Yashiro prefers to involve himself with most technical aspects of the stop-motion animation process: “I really like making things, moving my hands.”
Yashiro is a storyteller too, however. In both animations, he conveys a great deal about his characters in a short amount of time, sketching out a life in a few deft moments of gesture and dialogue. By the end of half an hour, the viewer fully believes in his characters, whether they be harried moon-squirrels or grief-stricken farmers. The relationships between his characters emerge with a similar understated power, as well-crafted moments of understanding — or lack thereof — drive their stories forward. For example, in Gon, The Little Fox, the playful fox spirit and the soft-hearted farmer upon whose land he wreaks havoc find themselves enemies even though neither really wishes to hurt the other — and, indeed, both make large sacrifices to avoid doing so.
Gon the Little Fox is ultimately a story of miscommunication, Yashiro explained. ‘Although [the farmer] Hyoju and [the fox] Gon’s spirits are connected’, he observed, they are pulled apart by ‘hidden feeling and thought’. Despite their best intentions, circumstances pit them repeatedly against each other.
Another dominant theme throughout Gon, The Little Fox is the ruthlessness of circumstance: the animation simultaneously emphasises the beauty and cruelty of its natural rural environment. The story, based on a classic of Japanese children’s literature, contrasts the wanderings of the carefree, mischievous Gon and the toil of the family who struggle to make a living from the land. There are many lingering shots on fish and dragonflies, flowers and foliage, sunrises and sunsets. The constant drudgery of the farmers’ lives — and the implications of failure — provide the film with its driving force. Yashiro doesn’t sugarcoat the relationship between man and nature. Instead, he acknowledges that it sometimes feels more like a battle than anything else, complete with life-or-death stakes. The micro-scale struggles of the central characters were more emotionally hard-hitting than many of the fate-of-the-universe battles I’ve watched in blockbuster animations.
Although Moon of a Sleepless Night also foregrounds the rhythms of nature, its mood is far more carefree and whimsical. Of course, there is conflict in this story, too: the moon gets stuck in the trees and a young boy has to help its anthropomorphic squirrel pilot get it free. If they can’t succeed, the two sides of the world will be trapped in endless day and night, but this predicament is portrayed as mildly inconvenient rather than apocalyptic. Only with a little help from our plucky heroes can nature get back on an even keel again. If Yashiro and Akutsu intended the animation to be an allegory for the conservation or protection of nature, it’s certainly an optimistic one. Its central dilemma fits neatly into the childlike, happy-go-lucky laws of Yashiro’s fictional universe, creative and yet deceptively simple.
Particularly in Moon of a Sleepless Night, however, this conscious naïveté of style can verge on cloying for adult viewers. Perhaps this was due to the over-produced orchestral soundtrack, or the meandering progression of both films’ central sections, which bordered on bloated at times. There is a feeling, just occasionally, that Yashiro’s films could have benefitted from a slightly more ruthless editor.
Perhaps, however, it is such gentleness of execution which allows these animations’ hand-made, analogue charm to shine through. Both Moon of a Sleepless Night and Gon, The Little Fox were beautiful, entertaining and thought-provoking: in short, they were a privilege to watch. Encounters is a wonderful opportunity to watch animations that most UK audiences would seldom get the chance to see otherwise, and to hear about the creators’ vision straight from the horse’s mouth. Encounters’ partnership with Kotatsu also means that viewers will get more opportunities to watch Takeshi Yashiro and Satoshi Akutsu’s works over the next few months, as well as a number of other outstanding Japanese contemporary animations.