Blind Willows, Sleeping Woman is one of the attractions of the festival. His synopsis is probably one of Annecy's most singular: « A lost cat, a volubile giant frog and a tsunami help an ambitious commercial attaché, his frustrated wife and a schizophrenic accountant save Tokyo from an earthquake and give their lives a sense ». Adapting some of the news from the Japanese author Haruki MurakamiThis UFO is a distant cousin of Ionesco for writing: a work at the crossroads of comics, cinema and poetry. Blind Willows, Sleeping Woman cultivates a constant sense of absurdity to better show what we miss.
« You can make any wish, go to the end of the world, but basically you're always with yourself. »
Sblind, sleeping woman takes place a few days after the tsunami that led to Fukushima. Newly forced, the film proposes a narrative cross-hunt by alternating between the different protagonists who animate this awakened dream. There is first of all Kyoko, prostrated in front of television since the disaster; the young woman seems to have rushed into the abyss of depression. Amorphous, she no longer has any relationship with her husband Komura, who was resigned. The latter reduced himself to embarking on an unlikely trip to the North to deliver a box of mysterious content to two young strangers. As haunted by his wife's spectre, Komura recalls his words. A sniper stroke in the heart, a ghost pain that would never leave Komura again. « Have you ever felt a pain so strong that you didn't think you could handle it? » Asks him for a sick young man. Immediately, a flash revives the loss of loved one: « I'll never come back ». A few words abandoned on a piece of paper.
« Living with you is like living with an air bubble.
It's not your fault. »
Another sad character, Katagiri, a dedicated recovery agent to life all that is more banal and boring, sees his daily life shambles after meeting a giant toad. As reckless as it is delicate, the name Frog asks Katagiri to save Tokyo from a new earthquake triggered by Worm, an upset giant worm. This Earthquake « will be so huge that the losses will probably exceed 300,000 people » Overbids the animal.
« I've always had the greatest respect for you, Mr. Katagari. All these years you have accepted the most ungrateful stains without ever sunk. »
A writer of literature, the latter sprinkled his interventions with quotations from Nietzche, Hemingway or other illustrious authors who – they – won posterity. « The greatest wisdom is not to be afraid of anything » and other maxims are spoken religiously in Frog's mouth, while Katagari drinks the words of the frog. Each of these characters will seek to rebuild. Pierre Földes' film often recalls a certain kind of comic book: the Bizarre. We find the strange atmosphere that Daniel Clowes proposed in Like a velvet glove caught in the cast iron. The encounters between the characters are systematically subject to asynchronous dialogues. It is this gap from which the absurd emerges. These exchanges maintain strangeness through the systematic use of reformulation or questioning. Sometimes funny, often touching, Pierre Földes' latest film is just about right.
« If you could see Indians, they weren't really there. »
Everyone always seems to be next to each other. And this is all the more so when it comes to the discussions between Komura and the women they meet. The latter seem as volatile as they are elusive. They play with Komura who remains impervious to their advances. This feeling that nothing really fits on the characters reinforces our relationship to the strange. The narrative is articulated and developed as the exchanges occur at random and at meetings. One dreams and escapes with them, without necessarily pursuing a definite goal if it is that of reconnecting with something that one would have lost.
« I wish I could look inside a dead man. Open it with a scalpel and find the essence of what it was. »
The dialogues are correctly written and Pierre Földes has also been able to build a quiet sound atmosphere but all in suggestion. A few piano notes here and there or a timbal stroke to better mark a revelation punctuate the narration as in a black film. Blind Willows, Sleeping Woman proposes to reveal the invisible that separates our human relations. Turn this ghost pain into laughter for Komura or discover friendship for Katagari and Frog. Each meeting is an opportunity for a sincere exchange, a sharing bubble in a grey world and still alive after the tsunami. A ghost pain that can only faint through exchange and look towards the Other.
[...] sublimated by rotoscopy, this anime is a French-Japanese coproduction between Miyu Production (blind Saules, sleeping woman, Linda wants Chicken, etc.) and the Shin-Ei studio. Animation. Karin, 11, is abandoned by [...]