by Stephen Russell-Gebbett
Satoshi Kon was one of the great Japanese Animators whose combined work at the turn of the Century represented a creative wave as strong as that felt in France in the late 50s or Hollywood in the 1970s. With Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, My Neighbour Totoro), Isao Takahata (Grave of the Fireflies, Only Yesterday) and Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell) he revolutionised the medium not so much in form but in emotional depth and artistic subtlety. Animation had never been more serious or been taken more seriously.
Beginning his career as a Manga artist, Kon developed a relationship with Katsuhiro Otomo, the creator of Akira, and wrote his first anime Magnetic Rose as part of Otomo-helmed portmanteau film Memories. Magnetic Rose, about a couple of men in space seduced and tormented by traumatic visions of the past, contained much of the themes that would dominate his later career – the fine line between the real and the unreal, the shearing off of personalities, a sick emotional malaise that lies at the heart of society.
The loss of certainty and the obsessive consumption of pop culture were explored in his first two films Perfect Blue (1998) and Millennium Actress (2001). They were two sides of the same coin, with Perfect Blue harbouring an intensely pessimistic outlook (the title itself could translate as ‘complete unhappiness’) and Millennium Actress an open optimistic fable.
Perfect Blue is the disturbing story of a pop star actress losing a hold of herself. Not only is she stalked by a crazed fan but she is almost torn apart by the increasingly demeaning, difficult acting roles that she undertakes. Millennium Actress is the more optimistic tale of an old movie star looking back on her career and life and on the man she loved and lost. Here her admirer is a perfectly decent documentary maker. Both films are about personas, real or imagined, healthy or damaging. In Satoshi Kon’s world it is difficult to distinguish between what is true and what isn’t.
Paprika, his last film, took the distorting nature of the mind to a new level. Garishly colourful and hypnotically absurd, Paprika put the power of creating and hijacking dreams in the hands of the insecure and depraved. Here again the main character would split in two to deal with the real and the unreal planes, an illusion that would be brutally violated. The film wears the manic laughing face of a clown and shows people on the brink of madness, on the edge of the abyss.
The love of playing games and laying puzzles, psychology and the psychology of storytelling is the strongest thread that runs through his work and yet his films are not cold intellectual exercises. They are rich and human adventures, a fact perhaps easily lost in the same way the people of his films lose themselves. Tokyo Godfathers (2003) is a reworking (via two Western adaptations) of a 1913 novel by Peter B Kyne. Instead of bank robbers or sharp-shooters, three down-and-outs find an abandoned baby. They decide to look after it whilst trying to reunite her with her mother. A film of great compassion, showcasing his warmly sharp and fluid animation style, it seems to represent Kon’s wishes and hopes for a damaged world rather than a distanced observation of our doom.
Satoshi Kon’s greatest achievement was a television series, “Paranoia Agent,” a masterpiece that fused his particular sense of irony and loss with an edge of anime cuteness. In “Paranoia Agent” the individual traumas of his feature films have become a mass psychosoma. When people can no longer face their troubles a boy with a demented smile assaults them with a golden bat. When he swings his bat with vicious force he offers an escape – to a hospital bed and to a place outside of the system. Is he real? He is a hologram that no-one gets close enough to pass their hand through who becomes an agent of paranoia akin to a chemical agent.
The series asks what fear looks like. Fear of fear itself embraces myth and goes viral, eventually consuming the whole city. “Paranoia Agent” addresses disrespect, fear, loneliness, the over-sexualisation of the young, the mirage of fame and the still-heard echo of the Atomic Bomb.
Satoshi Kon’s work was part of a trend in Japanese TV and film – examples of which were Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Pulse and Anime series “Serial Experiments Lain” – depicting a generation of people with little stake in life, eaten from within and attacked from without. These shows were characterised by nihilism but a nihilism mollified by empathy and you could tell that Satoshi Kon’s wonderful work came from a deep-rooted honesty and drive to shine a light on the worst that modern life, as he saw it, could offer.
Kon declared himself “influenced by all” the films he’d seen and elements of Hitchcock and Cronenberg come to the surface but the strongest of all influences is undoubtedly his own Japanese culture. Millennium Actress is testament to that, serving as a charming and exhilarating whistle-stop tour of Japanese cinema history – Kurosawa-esque Samurai epic, romantic saga, martial arts extravaganza.
His own influence, despite participating in the introduction of computer animation into anime, is still to be fully felt. Upon his death he was working on Dream Machine, a children’s film he described as a “road movie for robots”. He was one of those rare directors who could get you excited with his ideas and with their realisation.
He died when he had so much more to give but he had already left a tremendous legacy of beautifully unsettling films.
Stephen Russell-Gebbett also writes for Checking on My Sausages; this is his first piece for Wonders in the Dark.)
Lovely tribute to a shockingly premature loss.
Thank you, Allan, and thanks for asking me to do it. I was very happy to.
A really lovely tribute indeed.
R.I.P.
Have you seen any of his films, JAFB?
Amazing, thanks, this was wonderful.
And a beautiful tribute from you too Jaimie at your abode:
http://exodus8-2.blogspot.com/2010/08/satoshi-kon-1963-2010.html
Oh, Sam. You flatter me.
Thanks for your comments, again.
I wish I could understand Spanish perfectly because Jaime’s contributions here are always very insightful.
I well remember my first viewing of the psychological PERFECT BLUE at the Cinema Village in 1998 with a friend. I was hugely impressed, and knew then and there a major talent had arrived. His passing at this young age is a major loss for the artistic community, but beyond it’s yet another reminder of fleeting mortality. A few weeks ago I watched the documentary JEAN-PAUL BASQUIAT: THE RADIANT CHILD, and tried to grasp his own tragic death at age 28, when so much was unfullfilled, and I’d venture to say that about Kon, whose career was markedly incomplete, even with his animation masterworks.
This is an exceddingly loving tribute of a great international artist, whose influence will continue in decades to come. Thanks too for reminding me that “Paranoia Agent” is essential.
Thank you, Sam. Thank you too for asking me to write it.
It reminds me of Jean Vigo or Andrei Tarkovsky’s early deaths.
Ths is a great piece on, sadly, a director I know little about and a canon of work that I best be getting to ASAP. Stephen’s love for this man is, in black and white for all to see, overflowing like a vase that has reached its fullest liquid capacity. I love how he gives quick, succinct overviews of each film, the underlying meaning of each on and how they relate to the personal and social views of Kon himself. I’m hoping like hell Stephen is brain-jamming a all inclusive conpendium of Kon’s films for the future. It would be a valuble tool to help in the study of this great filmmaker. This was great!!!!!!
Thanks very much indeed, Dennis.
I will, I think, be doing something at least on PARANOIA AGENT. If I think I’ve got enough interesting to say about the rest of his work, I’ll write about them too.
For me, though, PARANOIA AGENT is a really complex and troubling series that needs to be given more attention.
I’ve just added the first disc of that series to my netflix queue. Can’t wait.
Satoshi Kon is a guy I feel ashamed to have not checked out more significantly before his untimely passage. Years ago I had a perfect opportunity to see “Paprika” open in America at the New York Film Festival, but was more concerned with seeing something else; “Manderlay”, I think (good LVT movie, but STUPIDSTUPIDSTUPID decision). If I remember correctly, “Perfect Blue” used to be available for download on PSN, and instead of purchasing that I got “Altered States” instead (not a bad trade-off, actually, but considering the latter is easier to find on DVD, not the most forward thinking choice). Then when “Paranoia Agent” was being broadcast on Adult Swim, I didn’t pay enough attention to its schedule, only caring about catching the second season of “The Big O” (sadly, the only decent animes they show anymore are “Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex” and “Cowboy Bebop”).
Perhaps saddest of all, the only two works of Kon that enjoy any in-print DVD release are “Tokyo Godfathers” and “Paprika”, making it that much harder to appreciate the man’s work. His anime didn’t fit into a neat little box like most others do– he’s not a spinner of children’s fairy-tales like Miyazaki, an artist of adolescant angst and adventrue like Otomo or Anno, nor a purebread sci-fi mindfucker like Oshii. His work was diverse, multifaceted and steadfastly adult in nature, mature enough to handle dense themes and complicated emotions without talking down to his audience, yet freespirited enough to take-off into flights of fancy whose flavor was all the more sweetened by the contrasting taste of bitter realities. In some ways, he just might’ve been the first anime-director whose work genuinely transcended the confines of his medium, and would’ve been just as interesting in live-action. I’d like to think that others will be out there to pick up his example, but we’ll probably just go back into the whole damn otaku-cycle again.
A great piece, Stephen. I certainly hope we see more examinations of Kon’s work from you in the future. Given the interest in television-as-cinema here at “Wonders”, your look at “Paranoia Agent” would be welcome here anytime.
Thanks Bob.
“In some ways, he just might’ve been the first anime-director whose work genuinely transcended the confines of his medium, and would’ve been just as interesting in live-action”
Yes, I think so. Him and Oshii – PATLABOR 2 especially.
I thought all his films were available on DVD – at least I see them regularly in shops here in the UK. As for PARANOIA AGENT I really would need to see it in full again before writing on it.
“His work was diverse, multifaceted and steadfastly adult in nature, mature enough to handle dense themes and complicated emotions without talking down to his audience, yet freespirited enough to take-off into flights of fancy whose flavor was all the more sweetened by the contrasting taste of bitter realities.”
That’s a great summing up of his style and concerns.
Re: Oshii– I should’ve been a bit more specific, but his work is almost entirely sci-fi, isn’t it? He’s grounded by the medium of anime and the genre of sci-fi, two things that are closely linked. And while Kon’s work certainly was often sci-fi in nature, a lot of it also was grounded in something closer to reality, or at least something that didn’t fit into the box as much. “Perfect Blue” and “Millenium Actress” sound that way (though perhaps you know better), and “Tokyo Godfathers” is especially a great anime work that flies outside of most of its dominant genres.
I like the “Ghost in the Shell” movies quite a bit, but at times I almost think my favorite Oshii movie is “Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer”. As for Kon’s work on DVD– all his stuff besides “Tokyo Godfathers” and “Paprika” have gone out of print, unfortunately. Perhaps that’ll be rectified in honor of his passing.
Sometimes just Sci-Fi infused, maybe. PATLABOR is more a political intrigue and URUSEI YATSURA – which I find a little annoying sometimes – a teenage romance/farce. I do like URUSEI YATSURA 2, specifically.
MILLENNIUM ACTRESS can’t be construed as SCI-FI. PERFECT BLUE is a psychological thriller, I guess, though I’m not comfortable labelling films like that.
You REALLY need to go multi region, Bob, all Kon’s stuff is available cheap in the UK.
I’d still opt for an NTSC disc if available. I’m looking into purchasing a multi-region player soon, but PAL playback gives me a headache, sometimes.
Great impassioned essay here Stephan. The largest ‘kudos’ I can offer you.
I’m not an avid anime watcher, but it seems these men transcended the genre so much that of the 5 films in the first paragraph you list I’ve seen 4. And I’ve seen PERFECT BLUE, and I agree with your estimation, it’s fantastic.
I remember the situation in which I saw it: I was washing dishes, as a crummy college job, and it was at a national chain (I won’t dare speak the name as I hated the experience). I used to joke that for the 4 or 8 hours I was there for a shift, I was authentically suicidal (that’s certainly hyperbole perhaps, but I really hated ever second I was there), but I stuck it out–not sure why… maybe I thought it some sort of ‘seasoning experience’ for life, paying my dues. I’m not really sure the reason, but the dish room employed oddballs–adults who wash dishes, and the subjugation that that implies is a weird thing to have to bear–a born-again christian fundamentalist, a 45 year old man with 2 kids who did coke in the restaurant bathroom during breaks, a female exotic dancer, two men in there early twenties with 9th and 10th grade educations respectively. It was one of the latter that owned PERFECT BLUE and loaning it to me, under the guise that it was his ‘favorite movie of all time’.
And I was impressed. How these things get passed along, and recommended…
Thank you very much Jamie.
That’s a great atmospheric backstory to your viewing experience too!
Oh and here’s a nice obit from the times:
this next one, ‘a road movie with robots’ sounds fun, and like a must see. A great concept.
It seems it’s quite unknown how advanced production was on DREAM MACHINE. It would be great to see it, and a more light-hearted flight of fancy too.
It’s an affecting tribute for one of the titans of animation. He passed on way too soon.
May he rest in peace.
Indeed, Peter.
When Paprika came out it blew my mind. I played it over and over again. He is the one animator I hoped so much for. And now I’m so unhappy that he is gone. 😦 RIP
So, STEPHEN….
With this kind of appreciation and knowledge of Asian animation, do tell where you hold MIYAZAKI in the count of the best in this field????
And, considering the intake of the films in this art for that you have seen, do you, like many, still hold AKIRA as the finest of this form????
I remember being pretty damned impressed with AKIRA to the point of calling it one of the best of it’s year and a visionary piece of filmmaking, animated or not….
I like “Akira”, myself, but I think it’s definitely stronger as a manga than anime. But the fact that the same guy was responsible for both– simultaneously, no less– is the really remarkable thing. Katsuhiro Otomo doesn’t work nearly as frequent enough as he should.
Dennis,
I would put MIYAZAKI as the best of the best overall. I think other Anime Directors are capable of reaching his heights but not as consistently. He is a consummate storyteller and a brilliant artist. Sweet, uplifting and clever. Though I’m tempted to say the NAUSICAA manga may be my favourite / the best of his work.
Akira is good but it struck me, because of its live-action cinematic qualities / pretensions, as a slightly watered down version of live-action (like its trying too hard, perhaps) whereas PATLABOR 2, which you could easily imagine being live-action, doesn’t have that same feeling.
For that reason, like NAUSICAA, I’d say the manga is better.
Stephen, are you aware of the progressing live-action adaptation of “Akira”? Apparently they’re basing it straight from the manga, covering the first three books in one film, and the second three in another. I’m skeptical to how it will turn out (especially if they do what I hope they don’t– set it in America) but at least it sort of returns attention back to the original work in its comic-book form. That’s where “Akira”, and perhaps Otomo’s work in general, is at its best as an epic, densely layered piece of visual, visceral storytelling. I’d recommend it.
Miyazaki is certainly the most productive of talents out there. Most of the other guys have one or two great works under their belt (Otomo’s “Akira” and maybe “Steamboy”; Oshii’s “Ghost in the Shell” movies and maybe “Patlobar”; Anno’s “Neon Genesis Evangelion”), but he’s got plenty. I’d argue that for the most part they’re all cut from the same child-friendly cloth, but there’s no reason to disparage his work for that reason alone. Fairy-tales they all are, but well told ones. Perhaps the saddest thing about Kon’s death is that he was really the first anime director since who showed an equally diverse and productive range of works, yet in a much more adult subject matter. In that sense, Fish was right to call him Miyazaki’s successor.
One guy who often gets left out in the conversation– Rintaro. He did the anime of “Galaxy Express 999”, the Peter Chung-designed OVA of “Reign the Conqueror” and the Otomo-scripted Tezuka adaptation of “Metropolis”, so he’s a multi-faceted talent as well, and one who’s worked in the biz for a long while. Chiaki Konaka’s also a talented writer for various anime (“Armitage III”, “The Big O”, “Serial Experiments Lain”), though as far as I know he’s never directed himself.
Bob,
Child-friendly is certainly not a reason to disparage his films in the same way you shouldn’t disparage Kon’s films for not being child-friendly. They are just more involving stories for me – the animation is simpler but more fluid, more beautiful. Miyazaki shines in his writing, his directing and his visuals.
Funny you should mention Rintaro because the images from DREAM MACHINES (from the third link above) reminded me of his METROPOLIS (adapted from Osamu Tezuka’s manga).
I remember hearing about the AKIRA adaptation but I thought it had been shelved. Wasn’t Leonardo Di Caprio involved in some way?
Yes, I like Armitage III and Serial Experiments Lain.
It is very sad as well that Yoshifumi Kondo died having made only one film – the exquisite WHISPER OF THE HEART.
The “Akira” films are still moving forward, I think. Leonardo DiCaprio is producing somehow (it’s not the only anime film his name has been attached to, either– maybe he signed on to “Inception” thinking it was a “Paprika” remake), and one of the Hughes brothers is directing. It could go either way, I think. Otomo’s film was a zeitgeist movie, but to some extent I’d have preferred to see him tackle his own work in an extended OVA, or something. The main reason the work feels a little superficial is because it’s all spread so thin, and can only tell at best about a third of the overall story.
I’ll admit that I’m not a big Miyazaki fan and probably never will be, but that’s mostly for personal reasons.
I think the live action AKIRA could be great. Visually there’s a lot of great material there to work with. Maybe, given the issues with condensing the Manga, a series of films might be the way to go – if there’s the public appetite / money, of course.
“…and can only tell at best about a third of the overall story.”
If I can continue the comparison to NAUSICAA, Miyazaki basically took the first 2/3 volumes (of 7) of his Manga and added on a new ending to cap them off. He realised he could tell a third of the story almost in full rather than telling all of the story with one third of the depth it needed.
The conclusion feels truncated but at least he wasn’t trying to squeeze all the material into the film because that would never have worked.
Yeah, it’s a little like trying to imagine Lucas actually having attempted to make “Star Wars” as one movie, rather than splitting it apart into six (or nine or twelve) features. The “Akira” manga is an incredible work, and coincidentally in six large books, just as “Lost” was finished in six seasons. Also, there’s six titles in the main “Metal Gear” video-game series (although “Peace Walker” is pushing it to seven, depending upon how you count it). Is six the magic number of sagas, or just a handy multiple of three?
That truncated feeling from rushing to wrap up the story is how I felt about “Avatar”, which by the way I saw again today in Special Edition form (I plan to write it up over the weekend). It’s hard to see how the story can continue from that point– you can end a movie by blowing up the Death Star if you like, sure, but you gotta leave Vader behind for the sequels. It’s too bad Stephen Lang couldn’t be kept around for the next installments, as I still enjoyed his performance best.
I think six is just 2 X 3 in these cases. Trilogies all come from the idea of Beginning, Middle, End I suppose. Or in music – Exposition, Development, Coda.
Re Star Wars – there’s only a need for a sequel if you leave threads hanging. Once you add that second film, and extra depth, you probably need the third. I was watching some of Dune today and I do think Lynch could have made an excellent Return of the Jedi – he has the ability to make things exciting in a conventional epic way as well as bringing a disturbing, claustrophobic edge.
I think Stephen Lang was very good in Avatar but perhaps symptomatic – he’s very exaggerated at times – of a superficial feel to the film. To me, in style and tone, it’s a children’s film. What impressed me the most was Zoe Saldanha / Neytiri.
I don’t feel the need for more Avatar. I read the scriptment many years ago and I couldn’t wait to see it. The film is very faithful to the nuts and bolts of what I read but I imagined something a lot more magical, grittier (the battles don’t hit as hard as they should) and more epically, rather than soppily, romantic. There were also giant flying jellyfish which I miss.
As for Lost, I really didn’t enjoy it. I watched the first three episodes and then bits and pieces since but I wasn’t interested at all in who they were, where they came from or what the ‘mystery’ was. The acting struck me as pretty bad too.
If it were a film it would be given a lot harder time and, because of what I mention above, it doesn’t exploit the strengths of television.
Re: ROTJ– Frankly, I think Lynch walking off was a good idea. Lucas either needed a puppet like Marquand, or he should’ve just directed the damn thing himself. I wish he’d helmed ESB instead of Kershner, even, no matter if the acting wouldn’t have been quite as good. Visually, the difference would’ve been negligable, very likely, and performance wise, the cast was strong enough to work with him as before. Really, relinquishing control was a mistake that’s haunted how the rest of the series is percieved, and absurdly inflated Kershner’s reputation as a director (Seriously, has anyone even watched his other movies? Even “Eyes of Laura Mars” is wretched, and that has a John Carpenter script).
I will say, however– Knowing that Lynch nearly directed “Manhunter” before moving onto “Blue Velvet”, I’ve often wondered if a pairing between Lucas and Michael Mann could’ve been interesting. Don’t ask me why, but I think their styles might’ve been complimentary.
Re: Lost– fair enough. That’s more or less how I feel about “Avatar”. Personally I loved the show, but do feel they kinda screwed the ending pretty badly, at least as far as the sideways-universe went. Really, with a few exceptions, the characters were the least interesting part of it for me, especially blandies like Jack and Kate. I still enjoy the show and will purchase the final season, but as far as finales go, “Twin Peaks” and “The Prisoner” are still king.
I’ll see you in the trees, and hear the word of the lord.
No, I haven’t seen any of Irvin Kershner’s other films – I don’t think. Did George Lucas storyboard the episodes he didn’t direct?
Michael Mann and David Lynch. Maybe, given their love of Digital video, but with two strong styles the compromise would ruin both.
Unfortunately I haven’t seen The Prisoner, though it’s kind of legendary here.
Lucas designed storyboarded a lot of ESB, and it’s easiest to see his fingerprint on the special-effects and matte-painting shots (which are many). Still, Kershner improvised a fair amount, and gave DP Peter Suschitzky a freer reign than Lucas probably would’ve. It gives the movie a more artificial feel in a Hollywood studio sort of way, very glossy and “Casablanca” at times, rather than the docu-verite approach of the original film. I’m looking forward to the “Makin Of” book that hits stores later this year, to help clear up the authorship issues once and for all, though, as Lucas still feels like the primary auteur.
As for ROTJ, Lucas storyboarded the lot, but beyond that, he was on-set every day and was basically recognized as the man in charge. Richard Marquand said it was like trying to direct “Hamlet” with Shakespeare right in the same room. Oddly, Kershner himself has said Lucas directed ROTJ himself, which only raises more questions about ESB. At any rate, he was certainly more assertive on the last film of the original trilogy, even operating the camera himself for scenes between Luke and Vader, including the final unmasking.
In the end, obviously, Mann wouldn’t have worked with Lucas any better than Lynch would’ve, probably. It’s just an interesting thought. And I’d recommend checking out “The Prisoner” whenever possible. It’s a fun show, and quite crazy.
Steering this back to Kon, anyway, I watched “Paprika” again last night to keep with the mood, and I was struck by the ways in which it almost seemed to predict the director’s passing. A main subplot is the recurring dream of the police detective who entertained hopes of becoming a filmmaker in his youth, and whose anxieties were caused by the premature death of his friend, who was just about to go to film school. A key detail is that the friend never told the detective-to-be about his illness, which is now reminiscent of how Kon didn’t tell even those closest to him about his cancer until his very last days.
It reminds me of how Bob Fosse more or less predicted his death in “All That Jazz”, but then all that bad behavior was bound to catch up with him eventually, anyway. Here, it’s interesting to see a director reveal something about themselves personally that isn’t something he consciously dwells upon– it’s not as though he had cancer at the time he made “Paprika” (or did he?). Then again, a movie like that, which dwells so much about dreams and the subconscious, it’s fitting that Kon himself would communicate something like that under the radar that we only now realize.
Very interesting comparison to Fosse there Bob!
That’s very interesting re Lucas’ involvement and the detail about the colleague in PAPRIKA – I’d forgotten about that.
It reminds me of THE TEMPEST which is often read as autobiographical, with Prospero setting down his magic.
Nicely written Stephen.
Have not seen Paprika, but have all the others. And Thanks once again for the lead on Paranoia Agent. Since we’ve only seen that one once, we’ll revisit.
Always look forward to anything you write about anime. Still looking for the last one you told me about.
Cheers!
Thank you.
I hope I’m not leading people to disappointment with PARANOIA AGENT – maybe I feel so strongly about it because it’s been under the radar.
Wow great job Stephen. Must admit that I’m not a huge fan of Anime. I don’t think I have ever seen this director’s work. I saw a couple of movies in this genre many years ago in a animation film class. Can’t say that I remember specific titles though. I’ll try to investigate further and will probably start with Kon’s work thanks to your wonderful essay.
Thanks Maurizio.
His films are as good a place to start as any because they show what serious and inventive stuff is done in the medium.
http://www.makikoitoh.com/journal/satoshi-kons-last-words
God, JAFB, that is incredibly moving. My eyes watered while reading this.
Truly.
Yeah, JAFB, way to make an already sad occasion even more of a downer, man. Seriously, though, that’s one of the most incredible and lucid testaments ever left behind by a director, and in its own way incredibly cinematic. It reminds me of Lang’s interviews about his literally mythic face-to-face meeting with Goebells, the ay a director can weave a the story of their live with all the trademark imagery of their films (suspenseful ticking clocks, surreal dreamscape hallucinations). I have no doubt that Kon’s “Dream Machines” will find its way onto the screen somehow, but I can’t help but also feel that you could almost turn this deathbed letter into a film, as well, an anime equivalent of “My Life”, that soppy Michael Keaton movie. And why not?
Reminded me of IKIRU all the time…
I read this earlier.
I had almost the same reaction as Sam.
Never felt like this in a long time.
Thanks for posting this, JAFB.
Extremely touching.
It makes you appreciate everything we take for granted…..
Yes. It also makes you think of all the people undergoing the same traumas. It’s a joyful letter too, full of love and humour.
Here is a compendium at Mubi of writing on Satoshi Kon:
http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/2188
An amazing letter and must say, agree with his take on end of life outlook.
A friend just went back east to be with her Dad, and he died in his sleep while she was there. It’s always a better feeling for all to be at home, as opposed to being in s sterile hospital environment.
Thanks for sharing the link!
I thought I’d post a clever short short by Satoshi Kon that I didn’t mention: