is a

2003 2003 was designated by the United Nations as the International Year of Fresh water, Freshwater. In 2003, a Multi-National Force – Iraq, United States-led coalition 2003 invasion of Iraq, invaded Iraq, starting the Iraq War. Demographic ...

Japanese

anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...

film directed by Kihachirō Kawamoto. It is based on one of the ''

renku , or , is a Japanese form of popular collaborative linked verse poetry. It is a development of the older Japanese poetic tradition of ''ushin'' renga, or orthodox collaborative linked verse. At renku gatherings participating poets take turns prov ...

'' (

collaborative Collaboration (from Latin ''com-'' "with" + ''laborare'' "to labor", "to work") is the process of two or more people, entities or organizations working together to complete a task or achieve a goal. Collaboration is similar to cooperation. The f ...

linked poems) in the 1684 collection of the same name by the 17th-century

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

ese

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

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

animator An animator is an artist who creates images, known as frames, which give an illusion of movement called animation when displayed in rapid sequence. Animators can work in a variety of fields including film, television, and video games. Animat ...

s. As well as many Japanese animators, Kawamoto assembled leading names of animation from across the world. Each animator was asked to contribute at least 30 seconds to illustrate their stanza, and most of the sequences are under a minute ( Yuri Norstein's, though, is nearly two minutes long). The released film consists of the 40-minute animation, followed by an hour-long 'Making of'

documentary A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

, including interviews with the animators. ''Winter Days'' won the Grand Prize of the

Japan Media Arts Festival The Japan Media Arts Festival was an annual festival held since 1997 by Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs. The festival begins with an open competition and culminates with the awarding of several prizes and an exhibition. Based on judging by ...

in 2003. Bashō's

hokku is the opening stanza of a Japanese orthodox collaborative linked poem, '' renga'', or of its later derivative, '' renku'' (''haikai no renga''). From the time of Matsuo Bashō (1644–1694), the ''hokku'' began to appear as an independent poem, ...

, or opening verse, of the 36-verse poem:Horton, H. Mack. ''Gradus ad Mount Tsukuba, An Introduction to the Culture of Japanese Linked Verse'' in ''Journal of Renga & Renku'', issue 1, 2010, p46

Animated segments

Norstein animated the opening stanza (''

'') as the special guest (''kyaku''). Chikusai is running around listening to trees, and meets Bashō. He's awed, but is amused to see that Bashō is picking bugs out of a cloak that is as torn as his own. He gives Bashō his own hat in exchange for Bashō'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, Bashō is moving slowly and laboriously against the wind, with a hand on his new hat to keep it from flying away. Speaking at the November 30, 2007 Russian theatrical premiere of ''Winter Days'', Norstein said that he had made a longer, 3-minute version of this segment, but had not yet added sound to it. Kawamoto animated the second (''waki'') and final (''ageku'') stanzas as the organiser (''shōshō'').

DVD releases

The film is currently available in four DVD versions, none of which has English dubbing or subtitles. * Regular Japanese release, November 22, 2003 ( R2,

NTSC NTSC (from National Television System Committee) is the first American standard for analog television, published and adopted in 1941. In 1961, it was assigned the designation System M. It is also known as EIA standard 170. In 1953, a second ...

). Contains original film (40+65 min), no subtitles. * "Complete Box" Japanese release, November 22, 2003 ( R2,

). Contains film + eight additional DVDs with making-of featurettes (total: 945 mins). No subtitles. * Korean "RABA Animation" release, February 7, 2006 ( R3,

). Contains Korean subtitles; otherwise, identical to "regular" Japanese release in all but the region encoding and price. * French release, June 20, 2008 ( R2,

PAL Phase Alternating Line (PAL) is a color encoding system for analog television. It was one of three major analogue colour television standards, the others being NTSC and SECAM. In most countries it was broadcast at 625 lines, 50 fields (25 ...

). Original animation with French audio, and 'making-of' with French sub-titles.Review o
''Les Fiches du cinéma''
website

References

External links

*
In-depth interview with Yuri Norstein about his segment

(Japanese) {{Japan Media Arts Festival for Animation of the Year 2003 anime films 2003 films Collaborative poetry Animated films based on poems Films directed by Yuri Norstein Films directed by Aleksandr Petrov Films directed by Břetislav Pojar Films directed by Raoul Servais Films directed by Isao Takahata Films directed by Kōji Yamamura Japanese animated films Japanese poetry Animated anthology films Films using stop-motion animation Articles containing Japanese poems Films directed by Co Hoedeman

Animated segments

DVD releases

See also

References

External links