Length: 01:30

Credits

• Written by : Matsuo Basho

• Read by : Takehiro Hira / @takehiro49

• Animated and Directed by : Michael Lester / @beginners

• Artists : Kensuke Koike / @kensukekoike

• Production : Dutch Uncle / @agencydu

• Animation Studio : Beginners / @beginners

• Translator : Meredith McKinney

• Sound Design: Oliver Muto / @olivermuto

• Creative Direction : Lane & Associates / @lane_and_associates

• Creative Lead : Hector Aponysus / @hector_aponysus

Project Info

Short Film / ‘The Narrow Road to the Deep North'

‘It was with awe


That I beheld


Fresh leaves, green leaves,


Bright in the sun’

- Basho

Two short films produced by Dutch Uncle for Alexander App @alxrfeatures - Both films feature a special collaboration with Japanese artist Kensuke Koike.

The Story

A seminal work of Japanese literature, written by master poet and former samurai Matsuo Bashō in 1689 – and now newly translated into English.

In his perfectly crafted haiku poems, Basho described the natural world with great simplicity and delicacy of feeling. When he composed The Narrow Road to the Deep North, he was an ardent student of Zen Buddhism, setting off on a series of travels designed to strip away the trappings of the material world and bring spiritual enlightment

He wrote of the seasons changing, of the smells of the rain, the brightness of the moon, and beauty of the waterfall, through which he sense mysteries of the universe. There’s seventeenth-century travel writing not only chronicle Basho’s perilous journeys through Japan, but they also capture his vision of eternity in the transient world around him.