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 | Kihachirō Kawamoto |
| Produced by | Sakura Motion Picture Co., Ltd. |
| Written by | Shinobu Orikuchi (story) |
| Narrated by | Kyōko Kishida |
| Starring | Tetsuko Kuroyanagi Rie Miyazawa |
| Music by | Ryohei Hirose |
| Cinematography | Minoru Tamura Kunihiko Itami |
| Release date(s) | 8 July 2005 (Japan) |
| Running time | 70 minutes |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
| IMDb profile | |
The Book of the Dead (死者の書 Shisha no Sho?, also known as "The Book of a Dead Person") is a 2005 stop motion animation feature film directed by Kihachirō Kawamoto. It is his second feature film, the first being the Rennyo and His Mother (1981) and is based on the novel of the same name by Shinobu Orikuchi. It appeared in a couple of film festivals in 2005 before going into wide release in Japan on 11 February 2006 and has since won several awards at international animation festivals. It was shown in cinemas across the United Kingdom in the spring of 2008 as part of Kawamoto: The Puppet Master, a touring season of the Watershed Media Centre,[1] and was released on DVD-Video in North America on 22 April 2008.
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[edit] Plot
The Book of the Dead is set in the Nara period at 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. On the eve of each equinox and solstice she begins to see a radiant figure looking not unlike the Buddha floating between the twin peaks of distant Mount Futakami. One evening, after completing her one-thousandth copy of a sutra, her view the figure she has been longing to see again is obscured by a rainstorm. In pursuit of it she slips away from her household to the foot of the mountain, where she arrives at a temple that women are forbidden to enter. There she learns that the figure might bot be not Buddha, but the soul of the executed Prince Ōtsu which wanders in torment between this world and the next. When Iratsume and Ōtsu'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'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.[2]
[edit] Awards
The Book of the Dead received an Excellence Prize for animation at the 2005 Japan Media Arts Festival.
[edit] Notes
Acclaimed Russian animator and director Yuriy Norshteyn was invited to work on the film as a "guest animator."[3]
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Shisha no sho at the Internet Movie Database
- Official site
- Kihachirō Kawamoto's Web site (Japanese)
- Interview with Kawamoto
- Review of The Book of the Dead
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