is a 1987 Japanese animated film by Osamu Tezuka and his studio, Tezuka Productions.
Initially planned in four movements, the film was presented incompletely in 1988, on the occasion of the Asahi Prize ceremony, in the form of a first part comprising the first and fourth movements. The two central segments remained unfinished after Tezuka's death in 1989. Makoto Tezuka, the director's son and part-manager of Tezuka Productions, produced the second movement in 2014 under the title The Legend of the Forest – Part 2.
The anime's first movement depicts the struggle between a flying squirrel and a hunter lumberjack. The second, directed by Makoto Tezuka, depicts the love story of two dragonflies as they follow the course of a river through the forest. The third movement, which was never realized, was intended to feature falling raindrops. The fourth and final movement features forest spirits trying to save their environment from the ravages caused by foresters.
The film is entirely silent, and each segment is designed to be synchronized with the music of the various movements of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4. Inspired by the world of Walt Disney, the film is also a tribute to the history of animated cinema, and an artistic pamphlet with an ecological position.
Synopsis Conversation between the trees of the forest The film opens with a flight over a large forest. Birds flee, frightened by a lumberjack cutting down a tree with a chainsaw. A flying squirrel scurries into one of the cavities in the trunk, which turns out to be the nest where its mate has just given birth. The father carries his children one by one up another tree, but one of them escapes him and disappears below. With no time for despair, he continues to carry his progeny to safety.
An imposing tree with a human face, however, has received the newborn on one of its leaves. The tree causes water to fall, enabling the newborn to survive. Curious animals emerge from their hiding places. The child begins to grow, cradled and nourished by the tree. Now able to move about, the young squirrel sets off on an adventure, fascinated by the birds' ability to move through the air. Mocked by the other animals, he falls trying to imitate them, but realizes that the skin on his arms enables him to glide. The birds, however, seize him with their beaks and pull him in all directions. The squirrel rebels and begins to chase away his tormentors, using his claws and teeth. To get back at his scapegoats, he plucks them, scatters them and throws eggs at them. However, the arrival of the woodcutter puts an end to his fury, and he hides under some roots to avoid being seen. Once the woodcutter has disappeared, a pheasant, followed by her children, shows him the trees cut down by the forester.
Seeing this, the squirrel gets angry and goes to his wooden hut. He sees the woodcutter through the window, feeding voraciously, and discovers the chainsaw leaning against a wall. Moving discreetly, he spills a jar of black, viscous material on the tool, putting it out of action. The forester, who has noticed the sabotage, goes berserk and sweeps a shelf to reach the squirrel, which makes funny faces at him, but misses and gets covered in paint, creating a clownish make-up. He then grabs a shotgun and rushes outside, chasing the animal that has flown out of the window. He manages to catch it, but just as he's about to fire, resin drips from a tree branch and blinds the hunter, allowing the rodent to reach shelter. To satisfy his anger, the hunter kills the pheasant and shoots the saving branch.
Collapsing, the squirrel emerges from his hiding place, but the other animals, holding him responsible for the bird's death, ignore him, turn hostile, and a bird drops feces on his head. The rodent isolates himself on the lightning rod of a stone house. He then sees a female squirrel with mauve fur gliding towards him, who explains that it's dangerous to stay on the antenna, as lightning could strike and electrocute him. Appalled, he joins her on the roof, and is stunned by her beauty. This is the start of a seductive ballet in which the female finally gives him a kiss, but the hunter observes the scene, and the lovers, noticing his presence, flee in separate directions. Finally emerging from his shelter, the male has only time to see his enemy flee with the body of his mate, and falls into tears.
When night falls, the lumberjack resumes his work, causing the forest animals to flee. Mad with rage, the squirrel spots the murderer's tent and breaks in to steal a fork. Climbing back onto one of the tallest branches of a gigantic tree, he stabs the fork into it, and is struck by lightning. Seeing the tree burst into flames, the forester takes fright and runs to take refuge in his tent, but the branch breaks off and falls on the tent, setting it on fire.
Romance between two dragonflies Directed by Makoto Tezuka and Tezuka Productions Studios in 2014, the second movement is a cinematic poem following "the evolutionary stages of a river, from its birth in the mountains to the moment it flows into the sea", through the love story of two dragonflies.
An anthropomorphic dragonfly is caught in the center of a spider's web. Another dragonfly spots it and makes several unsuccessful attempts to free it. As a spider approaches, the rescuer flies off and loosens a branch, which strikes the web and knocks both predator and prey off their feet. The dragonfly bounces off a mushroom and lands on a leaf, which breaks off and falls into the river. Carried away by the current, the frightened dragonfly is then followed by a frog which tries to swallow it but is disturbed by the appearance of one of its fellow dragonflies. The second dragonfly, which had been following the improvised raft all this time, finally joins it at the bottom of a small waterfall. The pair come across fish swimming upstream, laying their eggs at the bottom. An otter appears and, attracted by the eggs, throws a stone into the river, sending the leaf and its two passengers spinning. A snake bites her leg as she tries to grab it. The leaf is carried off into the sunset.
The moon has risen, and many glow-worms are flying around a mill. The two dragonflies pass beneath the building's wheel without difficulty. The female performs an aerial ballet, but when the male tries to join her, he notices that one of his wings is torn. He pushes his mate away, then returns and kisses him.
The morning dawns. The leaf is carried away again, the two dragonflies lying side by side.
Ballad of the raindrops The script for the third part, which remained unfinished following Tezuka's death in 1989, was nevertheless written by the mangaka, who also referred to it as early as 1981. It's an uneventful episode depicting raindrops falling.
On the hill of storm and rainbow The final act opens with excavators and backhoe loaders in action. Fairies fly at full speed, others ride little fish that leap out of the water, while insects are blown by the wind and eggs fall from their nests. Mushrooms run in all directions, kitsunes leap out of thickets only to be caught in the steel jaws of machines. Trees are felled by an army of lumberjacks equipped with chainsaws, and pillars are erected to transport the logs by cable, under the direction of a site manager caricatured as Adolf Hitler.
Deep in the forest, will-o'-the-wisps, bats and rabbits join the magical beings and animals gathered in a clearing. A dwarf resembling a garden gnome emerging from an ent is immediately attacked by disgruntled and threatening animals, who pretend to rip human-shaped mannequins to shreds. A fairy tries to calm their warring ardor by bringing in a flowerpot containing a rosebush, which she gives to a human-shaped tree to explain that a peaceful outcome is still possible, but reactions are mixed. An elf transforms one of the mannequins into a donkey, suggesting that the same should be done with all the foresters, but the donkeys protest energetically, embarrassing the young magician. A witch offers to give them an apple, but maggots emerging from fruits hanging in the trees protest. Trees, ghosts and fauns argue, but trees fall in the middle of the assembly and the workers invade the forest, causing its inhabitants to flee and their environment to become desertified.
Seven dwarves make their way through the woods, lighting their way with fireflies contained in bell-shaped flowers. They carry the potted rose to the men's camp, but at the sight of the desolation before their eyes, they become frightened and lose their balance, tumbling down the hill they were standing on. The pot escaped them, but they managed to recover it. They cross an expanse of tree stumps until they arrive in front of a brightly lit building resembling a menacing face. Surrounded by the ominous silhouettes of bulldozers, the dwarves await the appearance of the site manager, to whom they offer the flower. They explain to him that it's better to plant than to cut plants, to spread love and allow life to flourish. But when a dove transformed into a fairy places a kiss on his mouth, the construction foreman, returning in fury, spits flames, throws the pot to the ground and tramples on its contents, as the seven ambassadors look on in horror. An excavator's head comes down, reducing them to dust. Questioning at first, the site foreman lights a cigar with a satisfied air and heads back to the barracks.
Glitter rises from the silhouettes of the crushed dwarfs, and the wind carries away their dust. The heads of the backhoe loaders droop, and the site plunges back into darkness. However, the pile of earth where the rose rests quivers, and a sprout rises from it, growing at prodigious speed, surrounding the iron staircases, insinuating itself into the ventilation ducts, toppling the books and, surrounding the foreman in his bed, encircling him and sinking into his throat. Now as tall as a tree, the plant rips up the transmission towers, pushes the handles of the diggers, knocking them down, and knocks over stored tools. Flowers grow along some vines, while others catch fleeing workers and strangle them. Roots pierce the floor of the building, knocking over shelves and ripping out the construction-village sign. Flowers bloom everywhere and moss covers the mechanical equipment.
Technical sheet Title: Legend of the Forest Original title: 森の伝説 (Mori no densetsu) Music: Symphony No. 4 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Performed by the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ken'ichirō Kobayashi
First part Technical information Directed by: Osamu Tezuka, Takashi Ui Screenplay: Osamu Tezuka Art director: Masami Saito Sound director: Takashi Ui Duration: Duration: 19 minutes (1st movement), 10 minutes (4th movement) Release dates: : February 13, 1988 (Asahi Prize) / 2003 (remastered, IMAX release) : November 27, 2002 : January 15, 2003 (Future Film Festival) : February 21, 2015
Technical staff Set design: Setsuko Ishizu, Kazushige Takato, Mieko Chijinami Drawing: Masaki Yoshimura, Junji Kobayashi, Shinji Seya, Toshi Noma, Teruo Handa, Yoshiaki Kawajiri, Yoshinori Kanamori, Shinichi Suzuki Animation: Naoko Kitamura, Takashi Okamura, Atsushi Ishiguro Illustrations: Masaki Katori Verification: Kano Kaoru Color design: Rika Fujita Special effects: Takashi Maekawa First assistant operator: Masaaki Fujita Sound effects: Shizuo Kurahashi Editing: Harutoshi Ogata Producer: Takayuki Matsutani Assistant producer: Minoru Kubota
Second part Technical information Screenplay: Osamu Tezuka Directed by Makoto Tezuka Duration: 11 minutes Release dates: : August 21, 2014 (Hiroshima International Animation Festival) : February 21, 2015 (Japan Society, New York City)
Technical staff Planning: Takayuki Matsutani, Yoshihiro Shimizu Producer: Sumio Udagawa Character design / animation director: Akio Sugino Art and design / Art director: Jirō Kōno