Country Japan RT 70 mins Ft 35mm Director Kihachiro Kawamoto Cast Rie Miyazawa, Kyoko Kishida, Tetsuko Kuroyanagi Print Source100 Meter Films Email shohei@100meterfilms.com
Over the past 30 years Kihachiro Kawamoto has continued to refine his atmospheric stop-motion puppet animations, elevating the medium to the realms of high art in short films such as The Demon, Dojoji Temple and House of Flame. His latest work, completed at the age of 80, and only his second feature-length work ever, marks the summation of a lifetime of creative endeavour, both in terms of its underlying philosophy and its sublime level of technical accomplishment.
Set during the arrival of Buddhism in Japan, the story tells of the beautiful Princess Iratsume. Besieged by suitors, she nevertheless chooses to remain cloistered in her family house diligently copying sutras. Upon completing the thousandth, she is drawn from her room by a radiant light hovering over the horizon. Believing it to be a divine vision of Buddha she soon finds herself trespassing the grounds of a remote temple forbidden to women. Once discovered, she is made to remain in the temple for a period of atonement and purification, during which she is haunted by the ghost of Prince Otsu. Iratsume’s beautiful presence gives rise to earthly passions in Prince Otsu’s ghost. While Iratsume continues to believe the white-skinned Prince is the reincarnation of Buddha, Otsu refuses to release his hold on the material world until his love is consummated. JS
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