Singaporean filmmaker Eric Khoo created this tribute to manga creator Yoshihiro Tatsumi. The film turns 5 of Tatsumi's stories into anime-style animation, interspersed with episodes from his memoir, A Drifting Life. Tatsumi's adult comics explore urban alienation & shame, & the stories are dark & grotesque. The animated film closely follows the original comics, simply adding movement & sound to Tatsumi's pages. I like the affectionate way Tatsumi draws himself as a square-headed young man whose face has an expression of permanent innocence. Mr. Khoo's film is intended to honor the manga artist, & Tatsumi himself does some of the voice-overs & appears at the end of the film. There's an obvious gap between Tatsumi's gentle, naive demeanor & the disturbing content of his comics, but the film does not attempt to close it.Tatsumi plays at the San Francisco International Animation Festival this Friday at 9:00 pm & Sunday at 6:00 pm at New People Cinema. Take the festival's "Not recommended for children" warning seriously. The film contains casual death & dismemberment, copious vomiting & unpleasant sex scenes.
§ Tatsumi
Written by Eric Khoo
Singapore 2011, 96 min.
San Francisco International Animation Festival
Friday, November 11, 9:00 pm; Sunday, November 13, 6:00 pm
SF Film Society | New People Cinema
§ Buy tickets
4 comments:
Thanks for the warning. Dismemberment and copious vomiting are bad enough, but unpleasant sex is really going too far.
Just calling it like I see it. Even though this is a cartoon, it is definitely not for a general audience. Thankfully, the filmmakers did not choose to animate some of Tatsumi's ickiest stories.
I don't know Tatsumi, but thanks for your advice!
Your welcome. I just hope I did not scare you off! A lot of his comics have been translated into English now, including his over 900-page memoir, A Drifting Life.
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