The Book of the Dead (film)
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| The Book of the Dead | |
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 Japanese poster |
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| Directed by | Kihachiro Kawamoto |
| Produced by | Sakura Motion Pictures co. Ltd. |
| Written by | Shinobu Origuchi (story) |
| Starring | Kyôko Kishida Tetsuko Kuroyanagi Rie Miyazawa |
| Music by | Ryohei Hirose |
| Cinematography | Minoru Tamura Kunihiko Itami |
| Release date(s) | July 8, 2005 (Japan) |
| Running time | 70 min |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
| Preceded by | Rennyo and His Mother |
| IMDb profile | |
The Book of the Dead (Japanese: Shisha no sho) is a 2005 stop motion-animated feature film directed by Kihachiro Kawamoto. It is only his second feature film - the first was Rennyo and His Mother, made in 1981. It appeared in a couple of film festivals in 2005 before going into wide release in Japan on February 11, 2006, and since then has won several awards at international animation festivals.
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[edit] Plot
The film is based on a tale from the Japanese Nara period set around 750 CE, the era when Buddhism was being introduced from China.
Iratsume, a young woman from a noble house, becomes obsessed with the new religion and spends much of her time hand-copying the sutras, trying to understand the teachings of the Buddha. Then, one evening, after copying a thousand pages of sutras, she sees a radiant figure looking not unlike Buddha floating above a distant mountain. She follows him out of her house, up the foot of the mountain and arrives at a temple that women are forbidden to enter. There she realises that the figure is not Buddha, but the soul of the executed prince Otsu which wanders in torment between this world and the next. When princess Iratsume and Otsu's soul encounter, they feel compelled to unite. They forge a bond, bringing comfort and peace to each other – a bond that allows the prince Otsu's soul to find rest. The film follows the Japanese teaching that came from Buddhism: that no matter who they are, friends or foes, the souls of the dead need to be relieved. Kawamoto has said that the film is dedicated to all the innocent people who have died in recent wars.
[edit] Awards
[edit] Notes
Acclaimed Russian animator and director Yuriy Norshteyn was invited to work on the film as a "guest animator". [1]
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Shisha no sho at the Internet Movie Database
- Official website at 100meterfilms
- Official Japanese website
- Interview with Kawamoto about the film and his previous work
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