The Puppet Animation of Kihachiro Kawamoto

June 28, 2006 - June 29, 2006

The Book of the Dead, June 28, 29

Largely known for his beautiful, expressive puppets, Kihachiro Kawamoto has been making animated films since the 1950s. It was on the advice of puppet master and filmmaker Jirí Trnka, with whom he briefly studied in Prague, that Kawamoto turned to Japan's aesthetic traditions for his subject matter. Drawing on ancient legends and contemporary short novels, as well as Noh, Kabuki, and Bunraku doll theater, Kawamoto's haunting, poetic films speak of passion and loss, and worlds populated by ghosts and demons. At eighty years of age, he recently completed his second feature-length animation, The Book of the Dead, which was featured in a retrospective of his work at the 2005 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

Kathy Geritz

Wednesday, June 28, 2006
7:00 p.m. Demons, Poets, and Priests
In this selection of playful and poetic shorts by the great Japanese animator, puppets act out wry moral fables and tales of ghosts and passions. Also featuring Kawamoto's experiments in kirigami (cutout animation).

Wednesday, June 28, 2006
8:35 p.m. The Book of the Dead
A young noblewoman and student of Buddhism is haunted by the spirit of a prince executed years earlier in this exquisite feature-length puppet animation, a meditation on the tension between material and spiritual worlds and a tribute to the souls of the dead. Repeated on June 29.

Thursday, June 29, 2006
7:00 p.m. Absurdities, Legends, and Fairy Tales
An intricately detailed puppet rendering of a Noh play; an unconventional, exquisite fairy tale; a story made in Jiri Trnka's Prague animation studio; and one of Kawamoto's few drawn animations in this program spanning two decades of the artist's career.

Thursday, June 29, 2006
8:35 p.m. The Book of the Dead
Please see June 28.

Special thanks to Florence Almozini, BAMcinematek, who organized this tour, and to Valerie-Anne Christen, 100 Meter Films.