Dozens of North

“North is everywhere solitary … This is a record of the people I met in these Norths. However, my memory is fragmented and does not get the point at all. Now I’m starting to wonder my efforts came to nothing …” With this warning, Kōji Yamamura takes his audience into the nightmarishly poetic world of the “North” – although this should be understood less as a geographical indicator and more as an attitude to life, a certain state of mind. On his journey, Yamamura is confronted with human suffering and anxiety. The question of the meaning of life and everyday work arises in a wide variety of settings. Despite all the trepidation the film evokes, there is always a glimmer of hope found in the people’s resilience in their attempts to defy life’s unpredictable twists and turns.

As the basis for the film, Kōji Yamamura used his hand-drawn illustrations and quotations published in the “Bungaku-Kai” literary magazine between 2012 and 2014. In it, he processed the tsunami of 2011 and its catastrophic consequences in Fukushima. Musically, the film is masterfully underpinned by Willem Breuker’s “Drums in the Night/The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui”. Although already released in 1983, the music seems as if it was composed especially for this film.

Animated films by the internationally acclaimed filmmaker Yamamura have been screened repeatedly at Fantoche, including “Mt. Head” (2002), which was nominated for an Oscar and won the Cristal in Annecy. This year, “Dozens of Norths” was honoured with the Contrechamp Award at the Annecy Festival as well as a Special Mention at the Animafest Zagreb. (Moritz Bütler)