is a 2005 Japanese

historical History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

stop motion Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames i ...

animation Animation is a method by which image, still figures are manipulated to appear as Motion picture, moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent cel, celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited ...

feature film A feature film or feature-length film is a narrative film (motion picture or "movie") with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment program. The term ''feature film'' originall ...

directed by

Kihachirō Kawamoto was a Japanese puppet designer and maker, Independent film, independent film director, screenwriter and animator and president (corporate title), president of the Japan Animation Association from 1989, succeeding founder Osamu Tezuka, until his ...

. It is about the legend of

Chūjō-hime (also written Chūjō Hime or Hase-Hime) (c. 753?–781?) was by most accounts a daughter of the court noble Fujiwara no Toyonari who escaped persecution at the hands of her stepmother by becoming a nun at the Taima-dera in Nara. There she took o ...

who translated some of the significant

Pure Land A pure land is the celestial realm of a buddha or bodhisattva in Mahayana Buddhism. The term "pure land" is particular to East Asian Buddhism () and related traditions; in Sanskrit the equivalent concept is called a buddha-field (Sanskrit ). Th ...

sutras from Chinese to Japanese, and is said to have witnessed weaving of Taima mandala by Amitabha Buddha himself & his attendants from lotus stems. It is his second feature film, the first being the '' Rennyo and His Mother'' (1981) and is based on the

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

of the same name by

Shinobu Orikuchi , also known as , was a Japanese ethnologist, linguist, folklorist, novelist, and poet. As a disciple of Kunio Yanagita, he established an original academic field named , which is a mixture of Japanese folklore, Japanese classics, and Shintō. He ...

. It appeared in a couple of film festivals in

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discovered in ...

before going into wide release in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

on 11 February 2006 and has since won several awards at international animation festivals. It was shown in cinemas across the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

in the

spring Spring(s) may refer to: Common uses * Spring (season) Spring, also known as springtime, is one of the four temperate seasons, succeeding winter and preceding summer. There are various technical definitions of spring, but local usage of ...

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

as part of Kawamoto: The Puppet Master, a touring season of the

Watershed Media Centre Watershed opened in June 1982 as the United Kingdom's first dedicated media centre. Based in former warehouses on the harbourside at Bristol, it hosts three cinemas, a café/bar, events/conferencing spaces, the Pervasive Media Studio, and offi ...

, and was released on

DVD-Video DVD-Video is a consumer video format used to store digital video on DVD discs. DVD-Video was the dominant consumer home video format in Asia, North America, Europe, and Australia in the 2000s until it was supplanted by the high-definition Blu-r ...

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

on 22 April 2008.

Plot

''The Book of the Dead'' is set in the

Nara period The of the history of Japan covers the years from CE 710 to 794. Empress Genmei established the capital of Heijō-kyō (present-day Nara). Except for a five-year period (740–745), when the capital was briefly moved again, it remained the cap ...

at around 750 CE, the era when

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...

was being introduced from China. Iratsume, a young woman from a noble house, becomes obsessed with the new religion and spends much of her time hand-copying the

sutra ''Sutra'' ( sa, सूत्र, translit=sūtra, translit-std=IAST, translation=string, thread)Monier Williams, ''Sanskrit English Dictionary'', Oxford University Press, Entry fo''sutra'' page 1241 in Indian literary traditions refers to an aph ...

s, trying to understand the teachings of the

Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a śramaṇa, wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was ...

. On the eve of each

equinox A solar equinox is a moment in time when the Sun crosses the Earth's equator, which is to say, appears directly above the equator, rather than north or south of the equator. On the day of the equinox, the Sun appears to rise "due east" and se ...

and

solstice A solstice is an event that occurs when the Sun appears to reach its most northerly or southerly excursion relative to the celestial equator on the celestial sphere. Two solstices occur annually, around June 21 and December 21. In many countr ...

she begins to see a radiant figure looking not unlike the Buddha floating between the twin peaks of distant Mount Futakami. One evening, after completing her one-thousandth copy of a sutra, her view the figure she has been longing to see again is obscured by a rainstorm. In pursuit of it she slips away from her household to the foot of the mountain, where she arrives at a temple that women are forbidden to enter. There she learns that the figure might not be Buddha, but the soul of the executed

Prince Ōtsu was a Japanese poet and the son of Emperor Tenmu. Background His mother was Princess Ōta whose father was Emperor Tenji. He was therefore the younger full-blood brother of Princess Ōku. His consort was Princess Yamanobe, daughter of Emper ...

which wanders in torment between this world and the next. When Iratsume and Ōtsu's soul encounter, they feel compelled to unite. They forge a bond, bringing comfort and peace to each other – a bond that allows the prince's soul to find rest. The film follows the Japanese teaching that came from Buddhism: that no matter who they are, friends or foes, the souls of the dead need to be relieved. Kawamoto has said that the film is dedicated to all the innocent people who have died in recent wars.

Awards

''The Book of the Dead'' received an Excellence Prize for animation at the 2005

Japan Media Arts Festival The Japan Media Arts Festival is an annual festival held since 1997 by Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs. The festival begins with an open competition and culminates with the awarding of several prizes and an exhibition. Based on judging by ...

Notes

Acclaimed Russian animator and director

Yuri Norstein Yuri Borisovich Norstein, People's Artist of Russia, PAR (russian: link=no, Ю́рий Бори́сович Норште́йн; born 15 September 1941) is a Soviet and Russian animator best known for his animated shorts ''Hedgehog in the Fog'' an ...

was invited to work on the film as a "guest animator".

References

External links

*
Official site

Kihachirō Kawamoto's Web site
(Japanese)
Interview with Kawamoto

Review of ''The Book of the Dead''
* https://web.archive.org/web/20121007181816/http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/news-218222-110-wonders-of-japan-in-istanbul-for-two-remarkable-exhibitions.html {{DEFAULTSORT:Book Of The Dead, The 2005 anime films Films about Buddhism Japanese animated films 2000s Japanese films 2000s stop-motion animated films Buddhist animation

Plot

Awards

See also

Notes

References

External links