Le conte du monde flottant

[Martin Picard]

Here's the link for the International Festival New Cinema New Media in
Montreal : www.fcmm.com

Conte du monde flottant, Le: Alain Escalle
France/Japon 2001, 35mm, coul., 120 min., v.o.japonaise s.-t.f. sc., effets
visuels : Alain Escalle ph. : Bunkou Hamaguchi mo. : Franck Magnant mus. :
Cécile Le Prado int. : Kakuya Ohashi, Yuko Nakamura, Ryoya Kabayashi prod. :
Mistral Film

Hiroshima. Morning, August the 6th, 1945: a brilliant white light explodes
over the floating world. A man remembers: the shock, the violent wind,
bodies writhing in agony, dreams of past and present, visions of the past
and the future, the child he was - before, before the light, before the
world didn't trouble him. Even more than this stunning use of technology -
stunning being a word overused in the world of 3-D animation - this strange
fable captivates the viewer with its poetic evocation of the bomb. More than
just a pretty image, this sumptuous rendition of those terrible events,
mixed with an incredible knowledge of Japanese history - notably in its
tradition of animation - is quite simply magisterial. Alain Escalle
introduces his film as well as explaining the steps he took in creating it.

The film will be presented friday (october 19th), and it's free.

Martin Picard
Montréal, QC
Canada
martinpicard at videotron.ca





----- Original Message -----
From: "Anne McKnight" <akmck at earthlink.net>
To: <KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2001 3:21 PM
Subject: Le conte du monde flottant


> Hello,
>
> I'm wondering if anyone's seen _The tale of a floating world/Le conte du
> monde flottant_, a film playing at the new media fest in Montreal.  It
looks
> a bit like high-tech Greenaway, and by looking at the film-maker Alain
> Escalle's web-page, it seems to feature quite the mix of aesthetic/violent
> images--butoh, the bomb, an Izumi Kyoka-esque madwoman...The digital
nature
> of the project seemed potentially interesting, potentially
> techno-orientalist overhaul...
>
> Thanks for any comments.
>
> Sincerely,
> Anne McKnight
>
> oddly enough for a new media festival, the program does not seem to have a
> URL listed--sorry!
>
>