The Heian period's elegant mask slips—plague, corpses, and wild dogs await.
Kyoto during the Heian period (the 10th century) in Japan. Tens of thousands dead, gutters filled with corpses, children abandoned in the mountains, and groups of wild dogs vigilantly watching outside the city. The elegant image of the Heian period has been shown in many literary and artistic works. However, Katabuchi's new work takes us back to Kyoto a thousand years ago, when the city was shrouded in darkness due to repeated epidemics of plague.
Direction
Katabuchi returns—Mai Mai Miracle's gentleness turns devastating.
Production
Hand-drawn decay; beauty amid rot.
Cinematography
Shadows swallow Kyoto whole.
Director
Sunao Katabuchi
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The Heian period's 'elegance' in literature like The Tale of Genji deliberately ignored the plagues ravaging commoners; this film inverts that class-blindness.
Sunao Katabuchi spent six years researching for this film, consulting historians about the specific color of decay in 10th-century Kyoto.
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