Film Space Schedule Aug 2 & 9
At Film Space: on Saturdays at 7 pm
Film Space is to the right and in the back of the CMU Art Museum, in the Media Arts and Design building across from the ballet school, on the 2nd floor. Or maybe the roof. A small but nice place to view movies. A contribution is requested in the donation box at the entrance. Well worth supporting.
During August, Film Space presents a month of animation.
At Film Space on August 2, 7 pm: The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006) by Mamoru Hosoda – Japan Anime/Animation – 88 mins. Winner: 2007 Japanese Academy Award: Best Animated Film. An unexpected delight and one of the most acclaimed anime features in recent years, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is the first animated adaptation of a 1965 young adult novel that had been an instant sensation in Japan, spawning countless films and TV programs over the ensuing decades. Director Mamoru Hosoda updates the tale to present-day Tokyo, all the while remaining true to the same enchanting story of a girl who learns to time-travel. Due to open in Thailand cinemas on September 18.
We meet Makoto Konno, an outgoing high school girl living a daily life of fun. She's not the best student in the world, but she has two of the best friends in the world - Kousuke, who's the strong, smart dependable type, and Chiaki, who is a fun-loving slacker. They spend their days together goofing off, singing karaoke, and playing catch. But on this particular day, things aren't going so well for her. After failing a pop quiz, nearly setting her cooking class on fire, and enough physical accidents to fill a Buster Keaton movie, she gets killed when the brakes on her bike stop working, sending her directly into the path of an oncoming train.
… Except she doesn't die. Rather, she finds herself a few feet away, a few seconds earlier, and more or less, safe. Freaked out, she consults her aunt, who tells her she's simply time-slipped, and that it happens all the time. Soon, she finds she can control her time slipping by taking a flying leap.
At Film Space on August 9, 7 pm: Mind Game (2004) by Masaaki Yuasa – Japan Animation/Adventure/Comedy – 103 mins. This award-winning film is a journey of self-discovery based on Japan's cult underground comic "Mind Game" by Robin Nishi. The story follows Nishi himself through the life experiences that directly inspired the semi-autobiographical "Mind Game" comic. As a college-age loser addicted to porn and aspiring to write seedy adult comics, Nishi sets out to overcome his addiction to perversion in “a tale that is lighthearted yet painful and touching. What starts off as an innocent meeting between old friends quickly turns into a psychedelic extravaganza, filled with violence, sex, love, redemption, and the infinite possibilities of the human mind. Director Masaaki Yuasa rejoices in experimental animation techniques, filling the screen with virtuoso wackiness, mixing in rough lines and storyboards, then inserting photographic touches.”
This is the directorial debut of Masaaki Yuasa.
Bearing little if any relation to the rigidly delineated aesthetics of anime, Mind Game is far closer to the kaleidoscopic psychedelia of Yellow Submarine and the philosophical freak-out Waking Life. It’s free-association storyline, using the most minor narrative fulcrum to spin off in the strangest directions, leaves one no choice but to expect the unexpected—and expect it to be bold, brilliantly realized and bursting with music, color and creative ideas. Employing all manner of animation devices, from scratchy hand drawings and collage to complex CGI, rotoscoping and actual footage of the Japanese media personalities who provided the voices, Mind Game is nothing short of utterly unique and unprecedented in the field of animation.
