It's no accident that Yohei Taneda realised that the brick Monisima Cube on the Coolsingel could be transformed into a film set. The Japanese production designer of Air Doll has breathed new life into innumerable almost-forgotten films. He always looks for existing locations in big cities to realise his work. 'Lord of the Rings is not my style', says Taneda about his work method. 'I don't create hardcore fantasy worlds. By letting my imagination loose on places that are recognisable to everybody, I hope to lift reality above itself.'
Most film lovers will know Taneda from his breathtaking samurai sets from Tarantino's first Kill Bill, as most of the Asian films with his designs didn't make it to Dutch cinemas. The Netherlands Architecture Institute did, however, exhibit his set designs ten years ago when Shikoku was shown at the IFFR. Now Taneda has set up his own exhibition called Taneda's Coolsingel Cube and his handiwork can be seen on the exterior as well as the interior. Inside a blue stairway leads down to a small cellar. Set photos from Taneda's work hang on the walls, whilst film fragments are shown on a screen. It's a bit of a puzzle as unfortunately there are no labels or descriptions. Luckily his designs for Air Doll are simple enough to recognise for someone who has seen the film. This was the first collaboration between Taneda and Kore-eda Hirokazu, currently one of the most important Japanese directors.
It's a significant collaboration because in his previous films Nobody Knows and Still Walking, Hirokazu kept to an everyday reality. Kore-da Hirokazu: 'A story about a blow up doll that comes to life requires a more fantastical approach and therefore Taneda seemed the right person. He creates fairytale worlds that are so convincing they almost become reality.'
Air Doll is a meeting between the cool directorial approach of Hirokazu's earlier work and the expressive fairytale magic of Michel Gondry. This can be seen literally in the video library where blow up doll Nozomi goes to work: this pays a romantic homage, like in Be Kind Rewind, to a dying phenomenon. 'You can just about take the idea of a video library seriously', explains Taneda. 'In the film it's situated in a modern suburb for young families in Tokyo. Hirokazu and myself grew up in similar suburbs. On the one hand you have the reality of a big town and on the other the magic of the last video library.'
Taneda gives the impersonal grey skyscrapers and the hovel where Nozomi lives with her son a sweet, Alice in Wonderland-ish charm: from her flirtatious waitress dress and light blue hair-band, to the glowing stars on the ceiling and elegantly lettered name board. Hirozaku wanted to make Air Doll a bitter-sweet fairytale. 'Loneliness, loss and inadequacy play as an important role as in my earlier work. It's also, of course, an enormous handicap if you're just made of air, but Nozomi slowly manages to get around her limitations. That's the moment that she takes off and becomes light of spirit. In this way it's my first optimistic film until now.'
According to Hirokazu it's also thanks to the light-footed acting of Bae Doo-Na who plays Nozomi, the intimate camera work of Mark Lee Ping-Bing and warm atmosphere radiated by Taneda's film sets. They chose the film location together and then Taneda developed the sets and props. As usual he did this with the help of paintings and drawings. He started with a map showing the whole environment occupied by the characters; a geographical visualisation of the script. After this the different locations are sketched in more detail. 'Just like a musician needs rhythm and melody, I start with architecture, graphic design and drawing.'
Taneda's basic concept for Air Doll was a doll house.'With a blow up doll as a character it seemed a logical choice to me. It's a collage of small intimate rooms, linked together by Nozomi, who discovers this world in an uninhibited way.' The fantasy world is brought out mostly by the colour blue, which keeps returning in many different ways, from the darkness of the night sky to the azure of clear water. 'You don't find much blue in the real Tokyo. Like most urban environments you see mostly metallic white and grey.'
Last month Taneda had a meeting with Quentin Tarantino, where they talked about a possible new collaboration. This would be based not in Asia, but in a western setting. 'It would be a first for me, that I would leave behind my cultural roots a little bit. But I love to cross boundaries. Just look at the Coolsingel Cube: that's a cross-over between a building in the old Dutch style and the images of a Japanese designer. A producer recognised the red, white and blue on the outside to be the Dutch flag, whereas to me it symbolises water and a Japanese cherry tree.
Air Doll - Kore-da Hirokazu
Mon 1st 16.15 PA3, Tues 2nd 22.00 CI1
Taneda's Coolsingel Cube
Up until 7th Feb, Kruiskade 2, 12.00-22.00, admission free