Osakatomebaby

Well after being bored there is only one thing that ever happens, I end up having some good luck and enjoying myself. In this case salvation came in the form of (a)going out dancing rather spontaneously with only 3000-en in my pocket and then managing to be all right for Japanese class where (b)my teacher was an angel and says I don't have to take the test next week but we can stretch out the review a little longer. She says everyone thinks the book is too difficult (I know, she's probably just saying that) but that my speaking ability is right, I just have to learn the kanji. Actually she didn't say the latter, I did, but she didn't disagree.

So feeling passing-out exhausted but satisfied and I had two choices: go home and sleep or go watch some of the Czech animation I was so excited about. You know me, you know exactly what I did, drank about three bottles of green tea and headed for the theatre.

Sorry I didn't take pics of the theater, because it was fabulous. Little hole tucked away with loads of film magazines and posters of all manner of offbeat stuff, most of which I've never heard of. Yay. 78 seats and they deliver coffee to you in a little basket. Good coffee at that. I think I want to move in next door. There's nothing else in Kujo but there is a coffee shop nearby that makes a hella good strawberry juice (for an exorbitant price, but it could be a treat, specially after a night out).

I managed to stay awake through most of the first two showings- programs D and A which are named "Adult" and "Boys". The quality was mixed. D was a lot more even. My favorite being "Faust house" which was stop motion using a lot of delicately carved figures retelling a local Faust legend. Besides I'm a sucker for Faust. D also had a bit more of the twisted side, as you can imagine: wool balls that get out of control and the scissors that have to keep them in line ("Two wool balls"), a man who rather violently murders a Russian folk singer who invades his house and won't shush ("Matyu-kin killed Katyu-kin"--not sure about my transliteration of that). Also had some rather funny pieces that were less dark.

Meanwhile A contained the two most amusing pieces, and a lot of redundant ones. The redundant pieces were primarily concerned with what objects do when people aren't watching. Apparently they fight, play, and occasionally do a little line dancing. Amusing for a few minutes but after that you kind of wish a human would walk in and just make them stop. Darn "inanimate" objects.

"A" was supposedly the "Boys" show, but it wasn't really for kids either. The opening piece had me in stitches. 5 minutes following an outlaw across the countryside on a pommel horse to the theme from Rawhide. Actually gymnastics equipment kept popping up everywhere and the characters were all played by real people in stop motion. The final capture when he was gunned down was too much. Probably an entire minute of the five when he was riddled with invisible bullets. Things you just can't do with physical comedy except in animation.

Also riotously funny was "The world of the bookshelf" in which anthropomorphic books carried out their loves and adventures. The kama sutra was pretty sexy. Machiavelli was tickled at other philosophy books murdering each other. The OED threw it's weight around a bit and there was a great chase scene between some thrillers. Altogether probably the best of the batch.

Unfortunately "Day of Retaliation" which ended the set didn't live up to it's name and at least once I jerked wildly out of sleep, causing my viewing companion to go into otherwise incongruous fits of laughter, so we decided not to stick around for the next 4 hours. I'll no doubt go back next weekend.

(Most images from Svankmajer stuff they didn't show but which I love, put them together from some stills in a book I picked up).