Pierre Földes’ animated feature film adaptation of several short stories by Haruki Murakami is a surreal and wonderful ride. Fans of Murakami’s literary works will find his worlds lend themselves well to the animation medium. His signature topics of friendship, love, and alienation are all present, but Földes' visual interpretations take Murakami’s words and transforms them into living and moving fantasy. Földes allows the magic of animation to display the surreal tone and sometimes absurd images of Murakami’s work, not to bring attention to the magical elements but to better describe the human realism of the character’s conflicts through exaggerated scenarios and forms. It is a perfect match of story and form that we weren’t expecting, but so happy to be able to see!

 

Following an interconnected narrative, a lost cat, a giant talking frog, and a tsunami help an unambitious bank employee, his frustrated wife, and an anxious accountant find meaning in their lives.

 

This film is aimed not only at the millions of Murakami fans around the world but also at a public in to innovative storytelling, which has been defined as magical realism, and for which animation is a great medium. Stories are made up of memories, dreams, and fantasies, and influenced by individual visions of the earthquake in the form of evil trees, a giant worm, a secret wish, an unknown password, a mysterious empty box, and dark endless corridors in which the main characters try to reconnect with who they really are. - http://www.pierrefoldes.com