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Winter Days is two things: a renku, or collaborative poem whose creation was initiated by Matsuo Bashō in Japan in 1684; and a 40-minute collaborative film from 2003 based on the same renku, with contributions by 35 animators from Japan and elsewhere, all under the direction of Kihachiro Kawamoto. The title of the poem provides the theme which the poets follow, with each poet repeating the last line of the previous stanza before adding a new of line of their own. The animators follow the same procedure, albeit much more loosely.

The results of this when transformed to animated sequences lacks the cohesion you’d get from a page or two of verse, especially when each sequence is self-contained. The moods of the individual sections also vary widely, from horror to broad comedy, but the film as a whole is a marvellous assembly of animation techniques, from simple drawings to clay animation, painting, puppetry, and computer graphics. The biggest attraction for animation aficionados will be the opening sequence which features a rare two minutes of film by the great Yuri Norstein. Among the other non-Japanese animators are Raoul Servais (whose piece appears to refer to Japanese ghost stories), Jacques Drouin with his pinscreen, and Britain’s Mark Baker. Wikipedia has a convenient chart that lists all the animators and the techniques they use. The Wikipedia page also notes the absence of any DVD release with English subtitles, but since all the sequences are wordless translation is only required for the intertitles and the readings that separate them. If you’re used to pairing video files with subtitles, however, you can download English subs here.

Given the allusions in some of the poem’s stanzas it no doubt helps when watching this to be familiar with Matsuo Bashō’s other writings, as well as the subtleties of Japanese poetry. But there’s more than enough artistry in Winter Days to warrant repeated viewing.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Tokyo Loop
• Raoul Servais: Courts-Métrages
• Yuri Norstein animations