Winter Days

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Winter Days
Film Poster
Directed by	Kihachiro Kawamoto
Written by	Matsuo Bashō
Release date(s)	2003 (Japan)
Running time	105 min (40 min animation)
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese
IMDb profile

Winter Days (Japanese: 冬の日, Fuyu no hi) is a 2003 animated film, directed by Kihachiro Kawamoto. It is based upon the renga of the same name by the 17th-century Japanese poet Bashō.

The creation of the film followed the traditional collaborative nature of the source material — the visuals for each of the 36 stanzas were independently created by 35 different animators. As well as many Japanese animators, Kawamoto assembled leading names of animation from across the world. Each animator was supposed to contribute at least 30 seconds to illustrate their stanza, and most of the sequences are under a minute (Yuriy Norshteyn's, though, is nearly two minutes long).

The released film consists of the 40-minute animation, followed by an hour-long 'making-of' documentary, including interviews with the animators.

1 The poem
2 The sequences
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] The poem

...

(translated by Haruo Shirane at Colombia University)

...

#	Verse	Poet
1	mad verse: in the withering gusts a wanderer - how much like Chikusai I have become!	Basho
2	who's that? sasanqua spraying over a rain hat	Yasui
3	making the Master of Early Dawn construct a brewery	Kakei
4	a red-haired horse shaking dew off its mane	Jugo
5	Korean grass the long thin blades colourless	Tokoku
6	in the scattered light harvesting rice plains in the fields	Shohei
7	my grass hut - where I offer the heron lodging	Yasui
8	having to hide while the hair grows back	Basho
9	"the pain of deception" she thought squeesing her dry breasts	Jugo
10	by an unfading stupa sobbing with heavy heart	Kakei
11	a silhouette in the early dawn lighting a fire	Basho
12	an empty house the owners disappeared from poverty	Tokoku
13	in a rice field the Koman window dropping its leaves	Kakei
14	a man pulling the boat in the mist - is he lame?	Yasui
15	at dusk gazing sideways at the thin moon	Tokoku
16	retiring from court to a street of gossipy neighbours	Jugo
17	asking the Second Nun about the cherry trees in full bloom at the imperial palace	Yasui
18	"butterflies in the thick weeds" she wept blowing her nose	Basho
19	a palanguin: behind a bamboo blind faintly a face	Jugo
20	"now's the time!" releasing an arrow of resentment	Kakei
21	a pine in memory of a bandit bends broken by the wind	Basho
22	for a while it lasted a stream for Sogi	Tokoku
23	doffing a rain hat to soak deliberately in the northern showers	Kakei
24	parting the withered winter grass a single green endive	Yasui
25	shattered white shards someone's bones or what?	Tokoku
26	squid shells divination in a barbarian country	Jugo
27	I can't solve tommorow's mystery a cuckoo	Yasui
28	a long night consuming an urn of autumn water	Basho
29	at the temple lodging of Japan's Li Po-moon gazing	Jugo
30	a lute player sticking rose of Sharon in his hood	Kakei
31	an offering to the traces of a dead ox grass at dusk	Basho
32	carrying on the head a basket of shad	Tokoku
33	my prayers to an early dawn star to be pregnant	Kakei
34	today is going to the eyebrow ceremony for the younger sister	Yasui
35	for the court bath filtering out the Shiga flowers with silk gauze	Tokoku
36	the walkway reflecting the shadows of wisteria	Jugo

[edit] The sequences

The sequences and animators are listed in order of appearance.

#	Animator	Length (sec)	Type	Country	Notes
1	Yuriy Norshteyn	110	cut-out	Russia	Norshteyn animated the opening stanza (hokku) as the special guest (kyaku). Chikusai is running around listening to trees, and meets Basho. He's awed, but is amused to see that Basho is picking bugs out of a cloak that is as torn as his own. He gives Basho his own hat in exchange for Basho's (which has a gaping hole at the top) and goes away. Suddenly, the wind picks up and blows the torn hat away. Chikusai chases after it and manages to catch it, but then with a shrug lets it go and allows it to fly off wherever the wind will take it. Meanwhile, Basho is moving slowly and laboriously against the wind, with a hand on his new hat to keep it from flying away.
2	Kihachiro Kawamoto	52	puppet	Japan	Kawamoto animated the second (waki) and final (ageku) stanzas as the organiser (shoushou).
3	Fumio Oi	44	CGI
4	Tatsutoshi Nomura	48	cel
5	Shinichi Suzuki	51	cel
6	Haru Fukushima	47	flash(?)
7	Takuya Ishida
8	Raoul Servais			Belgium
9	Noriko Morita
10	Tatsuo Shimamura
11	Yōichi Kotabe and Reiko Okuyama			Japan
12	Aleksandr Petrov		paint-on-glass	Russia
13	Maya Yonesho
14	Yoji Kuri
15	Uruma Delvi
16	Seiichi Hayashi			Japan
17	Azuru Isshiki
18	Břetislav Pojar			Canada, Czech Republic
19	Katsushi Boda
20	Masahiro Katayama
21	Mark Baker			UK
22	Yuichi Ito
23	Keita Kurosaka
24	Reiko Yokosuka
25	Yuko Asano
26	I.K.I.F.
27	Bairong Wang
28	Isao Takahata			Japan
29	Nori Hikone
30	Masaaki Mori
31	Taku Furukawa
32	Co Hoedeman			Netherlands
33	Jacques Drouin		pinscreen	Canada
34	Fusako Yusaki
35	Koji Yamamura			Japan
36	Kihachiro Kawamoto		puppet

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Works of Yuriy Norshteyn

Director/Co-director: 25th October, the First Day (1968) • The Battle of Kerzhenets (1971) • The Fox and the Hare (1973) • The Heron and the Crane (1974) • Hedgehog in the Fog (1975) • Tale of Tales (1979) • Winter Days (2003, segment) • The Overcoat (????)

Animator (selected films): Lefty (1964) • Go There, Don't Know Where (1966) • Times of the Year (1969) • Cheburashka (1972) • Shapoklyak (1974) • 38 Parrots (1976) • Autumn (1982) • The Book of the Dead (2005)