Taneyamagahara no Yoru

Taneyamagahara no Yoru is a short story that takes place in something that resembles feudal Japan. It is set near the Taneyamagahara river where four men have gathered around a campfire for the night. The entirety of the story is told from this spot. It starts with the men just sort of indulging in small talk, touching on topics like the weather, mutual acquaintances, and rumors about local wildlife. Then, after three of the men believe they hear a wild horse and run off to see it, the rest of the story takes place in the dreams of the one man who stayed behind and fell asleep. The dream is the closest this story gets to substance, and it looks like it's going to try to go for a bit of an environmentalist message for a while. Unfortunately by the time the dream ends that message is completely lost, but in exchange we get some interesting twists that can really only be pulled off in a dream.

While the story may not have a lot of substance, it makes up for it with atmosphere. The way the men talk seems natural, and the wildlife around them plays a part without being overbearing. The characters in the dream, human or otherwise, come off as peculiar in just the right way so that they're intriguing without taking you out of the experience. Almost everything just feels so peaceful and so deliberate.

It's hard to talk about the art. The 'animation' is really just a series of painted scenes that just kind of cycle on the screen slideshow style to go along with the story. The camera will move around the still images to show you who's talking or to communicate what's important, but there is very little actual movement happening here. What's truly surprising is how well it conveys some of the scenes given that constraint. And while I wouldn't call the art great, it's far from bad and has some real charm to it. There were even a few scenes that were genuinely pretty.

If I had to pick the weakest part of this movie, it would be the voice work. I think every adult voice in this movie is the same person (I'm too lazy to confirm or deny that). Fortunately, there's an extended sequence in the dream that involves the man talking to children, and the children are voiced relatively great. Each of them has a distinct voice and they sound like actual children rather than adults trying to sound like children.

For music, I don't think there's much more than ambient sound. As I sit here typing this I can't actually remember any music at all so to me that means the movie doesn't have music or it does and the music is just super low key, complimenting the scene rather than making a scene. That's not really a criticism.

And that's really all there is to say. This movie's only 27 minutes long, you probably could have watched half of it in the time it took you to read this. If you're on the fence, I wouldn't call it great but I will say I'm glad I watched it.