stuff soshi thinks you should watch no. 51: "manga" (yoji kuri, 1977)
je mange une mangue pour ce manga
after watching "conej steps out," i've realized something. not including this film, i've shown 52 animations in this series, but only 3 of them come from the 20th century!
so for the rest of this week, i'm going to try to seek out some older animations, starting with this one by japanese animator yoji kuri!
kuri was an independent experimental animator who first rose to prominence in the 1960s. he was part of a group called animation sannin no kai (animation association of three) with other indie animators like ryohei yanagihara and hiroshi manabe (you can read more about them here and here).
compared to works from larger japanese animators (e.g. tōei dōga and osamu tezuka), who were influenced by stuff from disney, kuri's works have a very distinct, minimalistic visual style that drew me in when i first found out about him. a lot of his shorts (like this one!) also have a sense of dark, absurdist humor that i really like, so there's that, too.
the reason i chose to talk about "manga" was because it was the first kuri film i watched. and also so i could write that little opening line but mostly because it was the first film i watched. (here's some other stuff i watched from him, if you're into that.)
now for stuff soshi thinks you should watch, usually i write a lot of stuff about animation and writing and stuff like that. but honestly? i might keep things chill this time around and just talk about a few things i like. i have a feeling that posts with older animations are really going to focus more on animation history anyways.
kuri's absurdist humor really shines here. i've talked about humor quite a bit in the past, and it's really hard to study humor because of how subjective it is.
studying absurdist humor is even more difficult because...well, it's absurd! but even though the logic in this type of comedy is a lot looser, there's still some sort of logic, if that makes sense. it feels a lot like a dream; it's not entirely random, but it still doesn't entirely make sense. maybe that's why i like this type of surreal comedy so much?
i think about "the sun" from this film, for instance. the setup is illogical, but the punchline isn't. and on the other hand, there's "the parachute," where the setup follows some sort of logic, but the punchline doesn't.
a lot of what makes this humor work, too, is in the timing. a lot of the scenes, like "the strange sound," "the hunter," and "the door," feel like they're building to something grand—and then it just ends anticlimatically. it's just such a jarring contrast that personally, i can't help but chuckle a bit.
everything that happens here feels so stupid, for lack of a better word, and that's what makes it work for me. i think you and i both know how ridiculous life can get. and while humor isn't the only way to cope with life, it certainly helps a lot.
so if you have the chance, definitely check out some of kuri's works! of course, i won't force you to. it's your life, after all!
