Taku

Taku Furukawa's message to young animators: "Show me an animation I've never seen before".

I’ve had the great pleasure of meeting animator Taku Furukawa.

His work was unknown to me until a series of interviews we conducted with young women animators brought his name to my attention. All the young artists of the recent group exhibition “Koma Koma” in Funabashi, which Furukawa organized, mentioned his name with fondness.

When time came for us to interview Taku, I discovered  a man devoid of any pretension, a creator who makes films for the sheer fun of it. Playful is a word that comes to mind, especially when you look at the huge number of toy figures filling his studio.

Furukawa started his career in the studio of Japanese animation legend Yoji Kuri. In Japan, he is mostly known for his work on “Minna no uta”, a series of animated films for children regularly broadcast on the national TV channel NHK.

Watching the DVD compilation of his work is to enjoy 40 years in the history of Japanese animation, from the psychedelic 60s, through the experimentations of the 70s, and on to the premises of the video media in the 80s.

Although his work tackles such issues as ecological degradation and a criticism of materialism, his style remains light and entertaining.

Meet Taku Furukawa soon on POLOS on earth.

D.

Ghost Mountain

This photo seems to be coming out of a dream.

Can you figure out the spectral mountain barely emerging from the mist?

The name is Uummannaq Mountain and it’s located on the Western shore of Greenland.

The photo was sent to me yesterday by French filmmaker Bertrand Lozay whose 2-part documentary “Dogsled Expedition” can be watched on POLOS.

Bertrand is an adventurer/videomaker/animator who in the last 5 years has spent many months on the icy Arctic pole documenting the changing lifestyles of the Inuit communities for a local TV channel. His next project is to document a boat trip from France to Greenland.

Last time I met Bertrand was over a cup of espresso in a Parisian cafe. He was crashing at a friend’s in the capital, had hardly any belongings besides his camera and was about to depart yet again, alone, for the Big North.

The e-cards he regularly sends me from the vast freezing spaces of Greenland never cease to refresh my mind here in cramped, overcrowded Tokyo.

D.

It’s a wrap!

The time has come for us here at POLOS to conclude two animation projects that kept us busy for a year. A page is turned and we can now enjoy watching Sachiko Ide’s 3 Japanese folk tales and Takashima’s 8 episodes of his science-fiction series “Rockets Come Home”, overall 11 short pieces of work.

As a foreigner, collaborating with these two talented creators was a real learning experience. I was able to glimpse into the inner workings of the Japanese creative mind. All the elements that seemed to me powerful, touching or plainly bizarre in the Japanese anime I grew up watching I could find again here, germinating in the minds of the young artists. The odd mix of cuteness, comedy and tragedy, the dynamic imagery, the off-balance compositions, themes relating to tradition, a deep sense of loss, the manga-derived body expressions, all this language that is proper to Japanese culture already permeates the fabric of their work.

Throughout weekly editing sessions in front of the computer screen, both artists always listened carefully to the suggestions my colleague Iwaki-san and I dared to make, accepting the ones they thought pertinent and ignoring the others. A shot too long here, a narrative moment not clear enough there, a need for musical effect…

It’s easy to see what’s wrong with a scene, it’s much harder to make it work and fit it into the whole building of the narrative. I hope I expressed my opinion in a humble manner, as I am well aware the real hard work is done by the director.

In their willingness to listen patiently to outside interference and eventually modify their work-in-progress accordingly, both showed a remarkable openness of mind and a willingness to approach their film in with objectivity. It was certainly a good lesson for me who in my own work tend to stubbornly hang to my ‘vision’ when I should pay more attention to the audience’s reaction.

I have no doubt both Ide-san and Takashima-san will go on to successful careers in the animated arts.

D.

French dessert for POLOS creators Tomoya Takashima, Sachiko Ide, Shinichi Nagaoka (director of Mukashi Banashi), and POLOS producer D.