The Piano Forest

Kai lives in a neighbourhood at the edge of a forest. There is an abandoned piano in the forest; its keys do not work and nobody can get a sound from it. Kai can. He plays on his own and cannot read music. A boy called Shuhei arrives at the school. His father is a famous pianist and Shuhei has had lessons for years. The two become friends. An old teacher at the school hears Kai play; he was once a concert pianist and gave it up after an accident. He decides to prepare Kai for a competition. Masayuki Kojima directs. The studio is Madhouse. The source is Makoto Isshiki's comic series. The concert pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy worked on the piano recordings and the performances are his. The matter it treats is the difference between learned technique and natural gift; the film raises neither above the other. The competition takes the last third and the performances are given unbroken. The narrative does not build the relationship between the two boys as rivalry. The forest and the piano scenes are drawn with particular care. The same source was later adapted as a television series. Its limit is scope; much of the comic does not fit and the story is cut off early. Who it is for: viewers who like animation grounded in music and stories of childhood. Who it is not for: the story is left unfinished, the pace slow, and the ending open.