BLIND WILLOW, SLEEPING WOMAN

A Mesmerizing Tale of Loss and Illusion

Venue(s): Eurospace and more. 字幕版 is with English dialogue with Japanese subtitles.
From July 26 (Fri), 2024. Check the theater websites for 字幕版 screening.
Language: English with Japanese subtitles, or Japanese dubbed version
Official website: www.eurospace.co.jp/works/detail.php?w_id=000774
Theater website: theaters.jp/19244
Theater website: eurospace.co.jp/works/detail.php?w_id=000774
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS-zg2-0rqU&ab_channel=TheMatchFactory
Tariff: Check the theater websites.
Advance tickets: Visit theater site for details.

Title: めくらやなぎと眠る女 (Mekura Yanagi to Nemuru Onna)
Director: Original: Pierre Földes, Japanese voice direction: Koji Fukada (オリジナル：ピエール・フォルデス、日本語吹替：深田晃司)
Duration: 109 min

Earlier this year, Tokyo Filmgoer recommended that viewers flock to the English-dubbed version of Hayao Miyazaki’s Oscar^®-winning The Boy and the Heron. With the spellbinding Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, we have an even more interesting recommendation: while the animated film is also being shown in its original English version, we suggest that you opt to watch the Japanese-dubbed version instead — or to watch it twice so you can see both versions, which is exactly what we did. The Japanese voices have been brilliantly directed by celebrated filmmaker Koji Fukada (Harmonium, A Girl Missing) and include Tokyo Filmgoer favorites Shinya Tsukamoto and Kanji Furutachi.

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is the brainchild of French musician and animator Pierre Földes, who wrote, produced, directed and composed the score for the magic-realist drama, which interweaves six stories by celebrated Japanese author Haruki Murakami from three collections: "Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman," “Birthday Girl,” ”Dabchick,” "The Wind-up Bird and Tuesday's Women," "UFO in Kushiro" and "Super-Frog Saves Tokyo.”

Directing his first-ever feature, Földes combines the painterly with the edgy to create a mesmerizingly mysterious atmosphere that subtly expresses Murakami’s concerns with disquieting enigmas and existential dread.

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is set in Tokyo five days after the 3.11 Fukushima disaster, and focuses on a middle-aged bank employee, Katagiri (Tsukamoto in the Japanese dub), who is enlisted by a talking frog that calls itself "Kaeru-kun" (Furutachi in the Japanese dub) to help him save the city from destruction by a giant subterranean worm.

Meanwhile (and there are quite a few meanwhiles), Kyoko, the wife of Katagiri’s colleague Komura, leaves a letter for her husband and disappears, after watching live footage of the tsunami and its aftereffects unfolding. Stunned by his wife's sudden departure, Komura decides to go to Hokkaido to deliver a small box with unknown contents to a woman. The aftermath of the earthquake creeps into the consciousness of Komura, Kyoko, and Katagiri, reconfigured as distant memories and dreams…

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is a co-production of Canada, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, and won a Jury Distinction on its premiere at the 2022 Annecy International Animation Film Festival. To create a version of 3D motion-capture animation within a 2D film, Földes apparently filmed the entire screenplay with live actors first (which he calls “live animation”), after which the animators replaced the actors' heads with 3D models and then traced and animated their facial expressions.

EUROSPACE