Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, a debut feature-length animated film by French composer Pierre Foldes, has been released this summer in English to several streaming sources and on disc from Zeitgeist Films and Kino Lorber. The visuals are clean and direct in style, and they never overpower the characters they present nor the stories they tell.
The plotlines follow the exploits of several Japanese characters who are experiencing the threats and realities of earthquakes and tsunamis. While the stories eventually focus on the adventures of two characters who are employees of the Tokyo Security Trust Bank, the film’s narrative remains scattered. The stories cover a lot of territory. A couple dozen characters make life-changing decisions, including a magical frog that reads Tolstoy and Hemingway, a missing cat, and a woman who is granted a special wish on her twentieth birthday.
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is based on a short story collection by Japanese author Haruki Murakami, a master of surrealism and magic realism. If one were to attempt to break down the themes, it would be best to listen to the film’s creator. Foldes explains, “I want viewers to be inspired, to wonder in the end what this film is all about.” He thinks viewers should come away pondering: Am I taking the right route in life? Am I the person I want to be?
The title Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman has nothing much to do with the interlaced plotlines. It’s the name of the first of several Murakami stories Foldes interpreted so he used it as the feature film’s title. Yes, it’s an odd title and I don’t think it does much to sell the film to potential viewers.
The opening scene is Tokyo shortly after a devastating earthquake in 2011. Komura, a young bank employee cannot understand what is happening to his wife Kyoko. She sits in front of their TV obsessing over the bad news, seemingly stupefied, and occasionally falling asleep on the sofa. Then she disappears. Their marriage is troubled; she sees her husband as no more than air. Komura’s older colleague Mr. Katagiri makes a mutually beneficial bargain with a huge supernatural frog to handle the problem of an unpaid loan and save Tokyo from a tsunami.
Haruki Murakami last came to film fan’s attention with the adaption of one of his works as Drive My car. Whether viewers are familiar with Murakami’s writings doesn’t seem to matter and probably should not matter at all in responding to this film. The film has an existence of its own. It should be judged as an entity. Not every viewer will agree with this philosophy. Many will say that a movie based on a previously published literary work is tied to that work. My late husband, critic Rob Edelman, and I used to argue this point. Over decades we never resolved the disagreement.
Considering the popularity of adult animation these days and taking into account how much viewers enjoy seeing on-screen fantasies that cannot play out in real life, this film could be a winner with American audiences. It recently won awards at major film festivals such as in Brussels, Annency, and at the Toronto International Film Festival. To understand the general idea of Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman takes patience, but eventually the wait is worthwhile. It never mesmerizes; however, overall, the film is both artful and engaging.
Audrey Kupferberg is a film and video archivist and retired appraiser. She is lecturer emeritus and the former director of Film Studies at the University at Albany and co-authored several entertainment biographies with her late husband and creative partner, Rob Edelman.
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