Atama Yama is a Japanese short that takes not more than ten minutes to confuse the f*** out of the viewer. It talks about a stingy person who believes in saving everything he gets, and gulps down cherry seeds out of fallen cherries. A tree grows on his head, and is taken over by epicurean small/large men and women during spring, because of which he pulls out the tree. This creates a hole, into which water collects and people come for swimming, and so he blows his top. After this, he decides to look into the hole and the cycle repeats about ten times, each time the man getting smaller and smaller perhaps and then he dies.
I think this is based on some Japanese fork lore and if it is, I surely haven't read it. As a short, it is very confusing as I didn't get the fundamental idea of the film. I think the ending denotes that the greed consumes the old man, but what about the cherry tree in spring, all the people and the water. I am still racking my brains but there's no answer popping up.
The animation is authentic and traditional and I liked the sing-song way of narrating the story. But this is too abstract and needs some clues. The same thing happened to me after watching La Dolce Vita, which though is beautiful once you come to know the symbolisms, but is hard to decipher otherwise unless you can read the artist's mind or are going through similar times. I can state the same for Atama Yama. I hope at least stingy men can make something out of this short and learn a lesson otherwise this film would serve no purpose to its audience.
My rating: 5/10
I think this is based on some Japanese fork lore and if it is, I surely haven't read it. As a short, it is very confusing as I didn't get the fundamental idea of the film. I think the ending denotes that the greed consumes the old man, but what about the cherry tree in spring, all the people and the water. I am still racking my brains but there's no answer popping up.
The animation is authentic and traditional and I liked the sing-song way of narrating the story. But this is too abstract and needs some clues. The same thing happened to me after watching La Dolce Vita, which though is beautiful once you come to know the symbolisms, but is hard to decipher otherwise unless you can read the artist's mind or are going through similar times. I can state the same for Atama Yama. I hope at least stingy men can make something out of this short and learn a lesson otherwise this film would serve no purpose to its audience.
My rating: 5/10