Dolly-wood

I’m a sucker for video thumbnails. Once again I found a great video that intrigued me from the start by its choice of thumbnail. This video, about a small countryside town in Japan where the number of human inhabitants is outnumbered by dolls, is an excellent example of what I’d like to call “setting the scene,” or in other words, creating a mood at the beginning that helps the viewer enter the piece. It is also a good example of something our text “Telling True Stories” has referred to numerous times, which is the sparing yet calculated use of dialogue.

Let’s examine how the piece sets up the mood at the beginning. The intro begins with three still images of dolls. Specifically their faces, close up. This is a video with subtitles, presumably intended for an English speaking audience, so I’d like to note that the balance of imagery and text is well executed from the start. The visuals do not compete for the eye’s attention. There is enough space to listen, read, and see what’s happening on the screen. It takes about twenty seconds to go through this sequence of  dolls, and the timing feels slow enough to absorb the enormity of what we are hearing. Our speaker makes dolls… of the deceased residents in her town. And she considers them to be her very own children! That’s a lot to take in! The entry into this story could have been done in any number of ways, but this slower, measured beginning sets up a tone that will carry through the remainder of the piece.

What follows at 6:09 is a stunning wide shot of a waterfall with the natural sounds of the water running over rocks rising as the title card appears. The traditional Japanese music rises and fades, and now we make our descent from the wide view of the town of Nagoro into our speaker’s house. How is this achieved? After the waterfall we cut to a close up of a wood burning stove. Someone is stoking the fire, but the close-up does not reveal who. The sounds of crackling wood can be heard. At 5:51 we see a matched action cut from the C/U of the wood to a wider shot of our speaker tending the fire, in what is revealed to be her home.

Next we transition into the history of the town. It wasn’t always so deserted, as archival photos reveal. To add texture to the images, at 5:32 we hear some sound design of machinery, presumably sound effects to echo what one might have heard in the populous dam town of long ago.

5:25 is a stunning transition from a black and white archival photo to the exact same area in modern times. The color fades up from black and white to color as we hear that only 37 residents currently live in Nagoro. The transition illustrates the passage of time while also highlighting how much has changed.

As the video progresses we are treated to several delightful still images of dolls posed out and about in the town. Lifeless, somehow the photographer managed to capture them in ways that make them seem almost human. To add to this effect, at 3:06 when we are introduced to the abandoned school that our speaker has re-populated with dolls, we meet the “teacher” in a mid shot and hear the sound of a chalk writing on a chalkboard in the background. This clever sound design almost brings the doll to life! And at 3:46 we see a shot of two “students” ascending a stairwell with the sound of footsteps added in. These clever touches of sound design echo the speaker’s own feelings about the dolls, and help to bring her world to light.

Around 2:04 our speaker says that she enjoys making dolls that blend into the scenery. This is paired with a wide shot of what appears to be three dolls. But then, one of the supposed dolls stands up and we learn that it is a tourist who has come to photograph the odd town. It’s a great combination of interview audio and visuals. Up to that point, almost every shot of the dolls has been a still photo. So the expectation for seeing dolls in still photographs is somewhat ingrained upon the viewer. That makes the contrast of the video footage all the more pronounced, especially when combined with the line about trying to make dolls that blend in.

In class, we’ve discussed showing and not telling. Allowing viewers to come to “top of the ladder” conclusions without spelling everything out. At 1:34 there is an excellent example of this. So far, the video has been about several “bottom of the later” specific details. The number of people in the town, how she makes the dolls, etc. The larger questions… Is she lonely? Does interacting with dolls have an effect on her interaction with real people? All these questions that the viewer must be holding in their mind come to a head at 1:34.

We see a medium shot of our speaker interacting with a tourist. They smile, our speaker bows, then the tourist walks away. And the camera holds. And our speaker’s friendly smile slowly fades away and she looks off into the distance as the tourist moves on. It’s a very quiet moment, but it seems like a top of the ladder moment for reflection on larger themes of loneliness or isolation that our speaker doesn’t address directly. Does she say “I’m lonely here”? No, but the long hold on her by the videographer and the quiet space where no interview audio is heard creates a moment of reflection that in my opinion is intentional and supposed to suggest larger themes.