Monday 20 November 2017

Animated Discussions: Wolf Children by Mamoru Hosoda

I am not so much of a wolf ... as I am a rabbit. But you know that I love my cartoons and that I love Japanese cartoons particularly.
Yesterday I watched "Wolf Children"Mamoru Hosoda's 2012 film release, very reminiscent of the Ghibli tradition of fantasy family tales for all ages.

Its story is about student Hana who falls in love with a mysterious young man she sees at her college lectures. But his dark secret is that he is a werewolf, a race long thought to have died out in Japan. Their love affair continues and he and Hana go on to have two young children: a girl, Yuki (Snow), and a boy, Ame (Rain). Fate forces Hana to lose her lover and soon the intrusions of modern urban life prove too much for Hana and her tiny human-wolf children. Hana moves to a rural community and the film follows the family as the children grow towards adulthood. How can Hana raise them as a human on her own? And how will they live? As wolves or humans?

I enjoyed the film very much but somehow it missed something that I find in the Ghibli classics. It's not so much the visuals, I think, as in the story-telling. Ghibli or rather Miyazaki's characters can be subtly drawn in terms of ambiguity or gender "type". In Hosoda's film it seems that boys are expected to be "tough" wolves and girls to be more human "tender" and perhaps woe betide if they do not conform that easily. Mmmnn! (She do say stroking her old-lady chin thoughtfully.) But it's a great story which involved me and The Old Man easily on a wintry evening.

And I wouldn't mind getting hold of a copy of the the next Hosoda: "The Boy And The Beast".


Sunday 5 November 2017

Kneehigh Theatre's "The Tin Drum"

At last! Another night out  and a chance to see one of my favourite "local" theatre companies.

Kneehigh Theatre are touring their production of "The Tin Drum" (based on the Gunther Grass novel) and are bringing it to the Hall for Cornwall: November 21st-25th. Written by Carl Grose with music by Charles Hazlewood and directed by Mike Shepherd - they describe it as "a folktale for troubled times: one political, profane and profound" ... and an "extraordinary story of love, war and fizz powder".

Well that sounds like my cup of tea, don't it. So... tickets booked and seeing it soon.

Wednesday 1 November 2017

Mrs D Finishes Inktober


So Mrs D has worn her fingers to the bone in fulfilling her Inktober challenge of a themed drawing a day for each day of October. She is covered in ink and her room is full of screwed up paper.

She tells me that she enjoyed it very much and has come to understand her drawing a bit better: don't work on it too hard... she do say ... because all of the life drains out of it; working from photos is fine providing she doesn't slip into previous pitfall - and she do love her fountain pen (Lamy Safari with fine nib).

She is pleased as punch and quite unbearable about having mastered (well ... not quite) posting her drawings on to her blog via her new and unfamiliar smart phone. (Yawn, yawn.)

You can see all 31 drawings over at Syb&Me. Go and find them and give an old lady some pleasure in her declining years.