Sarusuberi: Miss Hokusai (2015)

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Siskoid
Miss Hokusai is a biopic anime about the daughter of the heralded artist Hokusai, an artist in her own right, who may have penned or finished a lot of his work. The film has a tighter focus than the manga it's based on, which itself played fast and loose with available biographical data, but it does what it does best: Use art to talk about art. 1814 Edo is idyllic and sometimes transforms into great Japanese works. Supernatural forces are at play, sometimes provoking great art, sometimes corrupting it. Episodic, yes, but each vignette has something interesting to say about the artistic process, and/or about this particular family's dynamic. Hokusai is unbearably dismissive of his daughter's talent, but doesn't think much of his work either (he famously said he'd only really get the hang of it by age 100). I say it's unbearable, but she matches him dry comment for dry comment, and his misanthropy is actually quite amusing. Flights of artistic fancy, moments of tragedy, comedy beats thanks to a dog we see grow up on screen, all help bring this one together despite a certain structural haphazardness. I guess it has the "balance" required of Japanese art. We did chuckle at the '80s electric guitar riffs in the soundtrack, but for me, they work. It's the sound of the call to modernity the film means to evoke through Miss Hokusai's life. A pleasant exploration of the artistic process and making peace with one's never-satisfied sense of perfectionism. 4 years 8 months ago