Kihachiro Kawamoto “Tabi (The Trip)” (1973)
Very striking little animation piece, reminiscent of an extended Monty Python cartoon piece, “The Trip” looks quite simple and has a simple plot but its intention is to educate viewers about aspects of Buddhist religious philosophy and its attitude towards suffering. A young woman goes on a plane trip to a strange country of surreal landscapes where she views a suicide, meets a poor cannibal, encounters war and sees a man who may have been her boyfriend in a past life. After these and other distinctly non-touristy and very uncomfortable experiences, she returns home, definitely sadder for the experience and presumably much wiser about the ways of the world.
The life cycle from birth to maturity to ageing and death, accompanied by disease, is illustrated in the film as are also other forms of suffering supposedly taught by Buddha: the sufferings of the mind and body, hanging onto the things you desire but not getting what you want, losing a loved one and having to meet people who annoy you or whom you find toxic in some way. I found Kawamoto’s treatment of the sufferings rather superficial, perhaps because of the deliberate decision not to have any sound in the film apart from a piano soundtrack, and the film shows nothing about acceptance of change and the non-permanence of all things, even the universe, and how this acceptance can free us from unhappiness and suffering. At the end of the film, the young woman appears not to be enlightened about the nature of suffering and how it tests her character and makes her a better, stronger person.
Bookended by static photographic scenes of people hopping on and off trains, the film is a string of static and colourful collages through or across which character cut-outs move somewhat crudely. The film moves at a steady pace and there’s some discontinuity as the main character’s clothes suddenly change about twice or three times during a trip that appears to be a one-day trip only. Comparisons can be made with Terry Gilliam’s Monty Python animations: there are puzzling landscapes in which objects become unusual just by their juxtaposition but Kawamoto doesn’t attempt to over-saturate the viewer’s senses with colour, movement (not much at all) or eccentricity for its own sake.
Technically this is a very well-done film but in its plot and message, the film says very little other than that the world doesn’t exist for our comfort and we had better get used to it!