Ohayo (2007) dir. Satoshi Kon

Maybe should be a Breakfast Link instead.

An extra quick dose today, an entry from a collection of one-minute films by Japanese animators. Satoshi Kon has never been associated with overstaying a welcome. Not in his brief but impactful films Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, or his masterpiece Paprika. Nor his career and life itself which was sadly cut short by pancreatic cancer at age 47.

“Ohayo” – aka “Good Morning” aka “Buenos Dias” depending on where you watch it from – makes up for scope with detail. Some go flying by, like the Happy Birthday messages at the opening. These suggest a context for the clutter around the apartment, though even its layers of clothes and containers seem deeper than one night’s revelry. It all blows by before we’re ready to drink it in, contributing to the groggy sensation of just waking up.

It’s this kind of sensation that Kon trades in better than almost anyone. Memory and consciousness are running themes in his movies and he often blends past and present or dream and reality with his editing (Tony Zhou’s Every Frame a Painting does a really great primer on Kon’s techniques here, be warned it contains spoilers for his features). “Ohayo” evokes that fuzzy feeling of displacement that accompanies waking up in a routine, where our consciousness walks the floor and at the same time stays a few minutes behind in bed. If we’re lucky we don’t remain translucent all day.