Hyde Park Picture house was opened in 1914, a cinema best known for screening 'art films' and world cinema films. I've visited before as part of leeds film week where they screened a few 'anime' movies like redline. But this time I visited with a small group of my friends to see 'The Tale Of Princess Kaguya' and that involved walking in the middle of Hyde Park at night which, lets be honest isn't the 'safest' place to go walking in Leeds. However with 10mintues to go we finally found the picture house. Settling down in a long line of animation students and one fine artist and film rolled... and within an hour the whole lot of us were reduced to tears. As the screen faded, the whole picture house was in silence... before one of my friends whimpered out a heart broken '' noooooooooo! ''
The tale of princess kaguya by studio ghibli, directed by Isao Takahata is a wonderful folk tale piece of artwork. Drawn entirely by hand and running a year late on production it was well worth the wait. Based on the Japanese folk tale 'the tales of the bamboo cutter' the studio didn't hesitate to rip out our hearts after first allowing us to fall in love with this innocent girl character of Kaguya. The story follows a middle age couple who stumble across a 'princess' they believe is a spirit out in the bamboo woods, the small family begin life naïve to the fact she is a spirit. By the end of the movie her adopted mother and father are clinging to her, apologising and pleading for her to stay.. only for her to go and forgot all memories of her time with them forever. And then the film ends.
A truly heart breaking movie that I adore, I love the fact it's all drawn by hand not only that but the 'storybook' feel the animation gives to the folk tale story. It only made the whole experience better that we saw the film in a wonderful building like the picture house... even if it meant walking all the way home in the freezing cold with the flu. WELL worth it!
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