!VAR HAGENDOORN

Koji Yamamura: Mt. Head

I remember seeing Mt. Head (Atama-yama) by Koji Yamamura at the 2002 Holland Animation Film Festival and hoping to see it again some time, because it is so surreal. One day a man, who hates throwing stuff away, even cherry pits, notices a lump on his bald head. Much to his surprise a cherry tree springs from his head. He cuts it, but it keeps growing back. At some point he decides to leave it. Because this is Japan, during the cherry blossom season it gets very crowded on top of his head. At some point the man's had enough of all the people picnicking on top of his head and so he tears out the tree. But then he's left with a hole in his head and on a rainy day the hole fills with water and the people return ready to take a plunge in the pond...

I like Koji Yamamura's animation style. And so I was happy to find it on YouTube. Embedding is disabled so you'll have to watch it at YouTube.

By the way, Koji Yamamura has a DVD out with a collection of his animated shorts, at least in the U.S. and Canada. It's region code 1. Hopefully it will be released in other region codes as well.