Miss Hokusai

Keiichi Hara's "Miss Hokusai," adapted from the Hinako Sugiura manga series, is a unique biopic, and not just because it is animated. Instead of telling the traditional story of a famous artist - in this case, Katsushika Hokusai, a legendary Japanese painter best known for the world-famous "The Big Wave" - it allows us to see him through the eyes of his daughter, and to do so in a most unusual style. In fact, Hara begins with a series of scenes designed to let us know that this is not a traditional narrative, something he clearly sees as reflecting the diverse artistic output of his subject. Narrated by O-Ei Hokusai, the painter's daughter, we see Hokusai painting a giant portrait of an old man, followed by two sparrows on a grain of rice. His art knows no physical limits. Then, as O-Ei crosses a giant bridge in Edo in the summer of 1814, we hear hard rock guitar riffs on the soundtrack. The appropriate response is confusion.

Unfortunately, this surprising opening doesn't really deliver. Over the course of the next 90 minutes, "Miss Hokusai" weaves an episodic and challenging patchwork quilt of moments from Hokusai's life. Probably due to the impact of the source material, "Miss Hokusai" is structured in a way that is designed to work better as a series of short stories than as a feature film. The film's pacing gets clunky rather quickly when it needs to be lyrical to work. And "Miss Hokusai" is remarkably chatty. It's full of conversations about other artists of the time and discussions about the philosophy of art. As much as I wanted to transport myself into the world of "Miss Hokusai," it felt more like an analytical examination of a period and one of its most important artistic voices, and I could never quite get hooked on that aspect.

In between the long scenes of dialogue, there are moments of visual beauty. I like the way Hara uses natural light, from the dim glow of a lantern to the vibrant orange of a sunset. And some of the "wide shots" are stunning, capturing Edo, which would become Tokyo, as a bustling, moving, eventful city, even two centuries ago. And there are "episodes" within "Miss Hokusai" that are effective as short films on their own. In the film's best segment, Hokusai recounts how one night she felt as if her hands were leaving her body, traveling the world without it, but attached to their owner, almost as an out-of-body experience. The parallel between this approach to art - tactile and experimental - and his daughter's more intellectual and technique-based approach is interesting, but, like much of "Miss Hokusai," underdeveloped.

"Miss Hokusai" might have been more effective if it had stuck to one tone within its episodic structure, or moved from one to another more smoothly. But a segment like the one above, clearly designed to raise a talking point about artistic focus, could be followed by one of many with O-Nao, O-Ei's blind and ailing younger sister, during which the film descends into sentimentality. The idea that O-Nao's father, while painting works of art that would resonate centuries later, basically ignored his ailing daughter, is fascinating, but better served in a documentary than episodically within an animated film.

While there is an undeniable ambition to address the life of an artist in a way that reflects the breadth of his abilities, and even questions the origins and purpose of art while doing so, "Miss Hokusai" lacks basic cinematic pacing. It gives the feeling that it runs much longer than its 90 minutes, and I came away with the feeling that I didn't learn much about the title character or her father.