Top 25 Favourite Films #5 La Maison en Petits Cubes (Dir Kunio Kato, 2008)
It is easy, with the degree to which Hayao Miyazaki is lauded, not only in terms of anime as a form of animation, but among the pantheon of animators, from Park and Lasseter to Bird and Chomet, to forget that he is just one of two Japanese animators who have received the highest accolade possible in cinema. The other is Kato Kunio, a comparative unknown, most famous for his film, La Maison en Petits Cubes (Or; "The House of Small Cubes", by far his best known and most lauded work, and the receiptant of the "2008 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film", among other major animation awards.
What
it also does, in striking contrast to the rest of his work-Kato's style is best described in comparison to that great unsettler of cinema, David Lynch, but with a deal more heart, is tell one
coherent, and character-driven narrative, largely stripped of the
surrealist imagery that defines his earlier work-whilst the visual style
of Kato's previous work, with its Giorgio de Chirico-esque (if
the name sounds familiar, the Italian surrealist also influenced the
cover of Playstation arthouse masterpiece, Ico) buildings, and
greenish-grey colour washes remains, this is a far more intimate and
less showy film. One also cannot help, with its francophone title,
brownish grey colour scheme during the old man's recollections of his
past, human-scaled homely grubbiness and gallic feel, most notably in
the visual design of the protagonist, but be reminded of the work of
French animator, Sylvain Chomet.
At its center, La Maison is a dive into memory and the role of a location in telling a story-the dive of the old man who has to retrieve his pipe from the depths of his flooded home reflects the old man travelling back into his past, remembering the events of his life that have transpired in the rooms, and how these have affected him as a person. The short's opening shot of a large number of photographs only compounds this sense of memory, whilst his building-ever-upward to escape the rising waters of a world seemingly flooded (make your own judgment as to whether this is an allegory for escaping the past, a critique on mankind trying to avoid responsibility for climate change, or simply the way to present beautifully surreal images of flooded towering houses.)
Awaking one day to his newest room being flooded, the old man has more bricks brought to his house via boat, and begins adding another layer-this scene in particular suggests a greater maturity to Kato as a director, content to let the camera run as his elderly hero goes about his work. Transporting furniture by boat, his beloved pipe falls from his mouth and sinks into the flooded house below-unable to find a suitable replacement, he thus decides to dive after it.
As he reaches it, in the flooded room below, so a memory of a (seemingly now departed) wife picking up his pipe and returning it to him floods back, and he begins to swim downwards through the house, seeing the bed where he nursed her, then his children and their family posing for a photograph, his son in law visiting for the first time, then his daughter as a young child. And down he goes, to his daughter in her playroom building towers of blocks, before he arrives down at what would once has been his front door, before, leaving via it, he arrives back at what was once street level, restored in his memory to a grassy landscape, as the entire story of his childhood and his relationship with his wife, and them building what would become his house, before we are suddenly brought back to the present, and the old man sits alone in what was once his small little bungalow. Returning to the surface, he makes himself supper, pours a second glass of wine, and clinks the glasses together.
With its grumpy old man, and its travel through the memories of that man, it is easy to compare La Maison to that by now iconic opening five or so minutes of Pixar's UP-both focus on memory, are almost entirely silent, and, to an extent, take place in a single location. Yet, this is something of a red herring-Up is a pair of lives at important, if increasingly sorrowful moments, and end in sadness. La Maison, in sharp contrast is a story of a life via rooms-most of the moments captured and later remembered by the old man are happy, if bitter-sweet, and whilst the first and last memories seem to encapsulate the loneliness that the old man feels, the rest are quite happy-it is easy, and indeed part of the human condition to connect a room, or even a certain seat or place within a room with, for example, a particular memory, or time of your life.
At the heart of La Maison, one could suggest the film is, despite its visual metaphor of rising waves and sunken cities, essentially about either accepting or denying loss, and old age. The old man builds higher, isolates himself from his loss and his past, and it is only when he loses something he cannot replace, (the pipe, but possibly also his wife) that he begins to reconsider and in essence, dive into his past; indeed, there is something oddly cathartic about his continual diving down, as though he seeks some higher reason, some eureka moment as to why he is trying to escape loss and old age, and finds it, ironically, in the construction of the first layer of his now towering house.
by far the longest memory, the recollection of his entire childhood, of his love for his now absent wife, and their act of construction together of this first layer, and the first meal they shared together are some of the most beautifully simple yet searingly beautiful sequences of any animator's works.
Yet, once he returns to the surface, makes his dinner and pours two glasses of wine, in a recreation of that first meal the final scene is surprisingly difficult to read as a piece of film. Is the second glass of wine intended to signify that he has come to terms with this loss, or that he, in a sense, cannot, and thus repeats what is his favorite memory of the two of them? That, dear reader, falls to your opinion. I for one adore this quiet, sad little film.Kato is a surprisingly soft voice in an industry that seems ever more dominated by large egos-his films are gentle, emotionally driven, beautifully animated, and visually as far from anime as one could think. Yet, in the nine years since his win, only three films, all by Studio Ghibli, have been nominated for any form of animated feature Oscar, with not a single victory. Why Kato, and indeed, by extension, why Miyazaki won, is a certain universality-particularly in Kato's silent and emotionally-driven sunken world, one does not need words to reflect upon the idea of memory and emotional closure. His, in short, is a voice that needs to be heard again.
At its center, La Maison is a dive into memory and the role of a location in telling a story-the dive of the old man who has to retrieve his pipe from the depths of his flooded home reflects the old man travelling back into his past, remembering the events of his life that have transpired in the rooms, and how these have affected him as a person. The short's opening shot of a large number of photographs only compounds this sense of memory, whilst his building-ever-upward to escape the rising waters of a world seemingly flooded (make your own judgment as to whether this is an allegory for escaping the past, a critique on mankind trying to avoid responsibility for climate change, or simply the way to present beautifully surreal images of flooded towering houses.)
Awaking one day to his newest room being flooded, the old man has more bricks brought to his house via boat, and begins adding another layer-this scene in particular suggests a greater maturity to Kato as a director, content to let the camera run as his elderly hero goes about his work. Transporting furniture by boat, his beloved pipe falls from his mouth and sinks into the flooded house below-unable to find a suitable replacement, he thus decides to dive after it.
As he reaches it, in the flooded room below, so a memory of a (seemingly now departed) wife picking up his pipe and returning it to him floods back, and he begins to swim downwards through the house, seeing the bed where he nursed her, then his children and their family posing for a photograph, his son in law visiting for the first time, then his daughter as a young child. And down he goes, to his daughter in her playroom building towers of blocks, before he arrives down at what would once has been his front door, before, leaving via it, he arrives back at what was once street level, restored in his memory to a grassy landscape, as the entire story of his childhood and his relationship with his wife, and them building what would become his house, before we are suddenly brought back to the present, and the old man sits alone in what was once his small little bungalow. Returning to the surface, he makes himself supper, pours a second glass of wine, and clinks the glasses together.
With its grumpy old man, and its travel through the memories of that man, it is easy to compare La Maison to that by now iconic opening five or so minutes of Pixar's UP-both focus on memory, are almost entirely silent, and, to an extent, take place in a single location. Yet, this is something of a red herring-Up is a pair of lives at important, if increasingly sorrowful moments, and end in sadness. La Maison, in sharp contrast is a story of a life via rooms-most of the moments captured and later remembered by the old man are happy, if bitter-sweet, and whilst the first and last memories seem to encapsulate the loneliness that the old man feels, the rest are quite happy-it is easy, and indeed part of the human condition to connect a room, or even a certain seat or place within a room with, for example, a particular memory, or time of your life.
At the heart of La Maison, one could suggest the film is, despite its visual metaphor of rising waves and sunken cities, essentially about either accepting or denying loss, and old age. The old man builds higher, isolates himself from his loss and his past, and it is only when he loses something he cannot replace, (the pipe, but possibly also his wife) that he begins to reconsider and in essence, dive into his past; indeed, there is something oddly cathartic about his continual diving down, as though he seeks some higher reason, some eureka moment as to why he is trying to escape loss and old age, and finds it, ironically, in the construction of the first layer of his now towering house.
by far the longest memory, the recollection of his entire childhood, of his love for his now absent wife, and their act of construction together of this first layer, and the first meal they shared together are some of the most beautifully simple yet searingly beautiful sequences of any animator's works.
Yet, once he returns to the surface, makes his dinner and pours two glasses of wine, in a recreation of that first meal the final scene is surprisingly difficult to read as a piece of film. Is the second glass of wine intended to signify that he has come to terms with this loss, or that he, in a sense, cannot, and thus repeats what is his favorite memory of the two of them? That, dear reader, falls to your opinion. I for one adore this quiet, sad little film.Kato is a surprisingly soft voice in an industry that seems ever more dominated by large egos-his films are gentle, emotionally driven, beautifully animated, and visually as far from anime as one could think. Yet, in the nine years since his win, only three films, all by Studio Ghibli, have been nominated for any form of animated feature Oscar, with not a single victory. Why Kato, and indeed, by extension, why Miyazaki won, is a certain universality-particularly in Kato's silent and emotionally-driven sunken world, one does not need words to reflect upon the idea of memory and emotional closure. His, in short, is a voice that needs to be heard again.
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