From Venice to Korea to Annecy, which he closed in beauty, Inu-Oh continues his festival tour in festival. Presented in Fantasia, this baroque tale by the fantasy director Masaaki Yuasa (Mind Game, Ride your wave, Devilman crybaby) is one of the unmissables of the year. Adapted from the new Heike monogatari: Inu-ô no kan, this over-flying anime collects prices wherever it passes. Opera deluge, Inu-Oh narrates the adventures of a young fisherman who has gone blind after recovering a cursed treasure from the sea. At the same time, a deformed creature is born within a respectable family of theatre actors. No (), an ancestral lyrical drama with deep-rooted codes. Inu-Oh is an anime that like the No goes through the ages. From Buddhist music to metal, Masaaki Yuasa embarks on a breathtaking visual and sound journey.
No more heroes
The strength of this musical is probably its ability to multiply approaches. From an artistic point of view, Masaaki Yuasa employs an impressive number of animation techniques. We move from Japanese prints to watercolours, from scratched drawing to 3D, from paintings marked by generous brush strokes to greasy features that recall the charcoal. Despite the heterogeneity of styles, Inu-Oh manages to maintain remarkable visual consistency. This graphic opulence finds a similar echo with the OST, made by Otomo Yoshihide and performed by the singer of the Queen Bee, Avu-chan, and the dancer Mirai Moriyama. It was first necessary to create the images before producing the music sequences tells Masaaki. Then the images were sent to the composer. A process that did not have to be easy to synchronize images and sounds, says the director.
« In fact, I've prepared all kinds of styles, it can range from classical dance to movements by Jackie Chan, MC Hammer, the Beatles... or archives of gymnast athletes, athletes. »
Inu-Oh is a musical tunnel, a portal between past and present. Like the theater No once defined by its conservatism, the film begins with traditional songs and dances where improvisation is prohibited. The gesture must be perfect and replicated identically under the penalty of contravening the shogun. Gradually, the talents of this unlikely duo of the traveling and blind sinner are freed. There's like an air of Zatōichi, more musical.
The rites are well anchored and the No has long been marked by costumed and masked dances. The actors of the No play mainly for privileged castes. A mixture of religious rites intended to grant favors to the gods for the harvest, No was originally intended for an aristocratic elite. It was at the time Muromachi, under the authority of Shoguns Ashikaga that two actors, father and son, established the framework of what would become the No. There are strict rules for kimonos, masks, music and stage. Our two heroes will subvert the codes of No to reveal their own talent by representing themselves directly before the people.
One starts improvising rifs with a sort of cithar that he does not hesitate to tip behind his head to ignite crowds, while his acolyte reveals itself with ever more perilous dances. In pure tradition No, the main actor, the shite, is masked and advances the plot by his dances. It is naturally the deformed creature who takes on this role. So, he started a dialogue with the Waki, this time played by Inu-Oh, troubadour and musician possessed during his performances.
Monkey music
INu-Oh the stage, and developments of the No to the Sarugaku, which added to the repertoire of acrobatics, magic tricks and comic texts. It was under the influence of Buddhism that new ceremonies gradually transversed the rites. The meeting between Inu-Oh and this deformed creature will be the occasion for mutual emulation and a constant transgression that limits to desecration for the old shoguns. Inu-Oh is a fable that seeks to articulate tradition and modernity. The story is done in small touches and if, at the beginning, one can be somewhat disarrayed by the narration, the pieces of the puzzle are assembled up to the final fireworks.
Inu-Oh will fight to the end to express his art, while crowds turn away from traditions and seem won by a collective trance, which scares local authorities. Even the bastards flock and are enraged by the two artists whose popularity continues to win the surrounding regions, like the first rock stars and their groupies. It is the entire Japanese medieval civilization that will shift towards something else thanks to the joint performance of the two artists.
Like rap, electro or metal, which were despised by a kind of cultural puritanism, Inu-Oh recalls how the new forms of expression are systematically associated with heresy by some reactionary phantom of society. Audacious, funny and touching, Inu-Oh finished in Annecy with an ovation of the audience... like any good concert! A success that should undoubtedly win Montreal before its release on November 23, 2022 in France.
[...] identically before they were subverted by popular Noh theatre (read our review of Inu-Oh). Or the baroque which pejoratively referred to irregular pearls (barroco) [...]