Dolls Of The Dead

The above short documentary Valley of Dolls tells the story of Ayano Tsukimi, a 64-year-old woman pursuing her “decade-long dedication to making dolls of the dead and disappeared in her nearly abandoned town of Nagoro, Japan.” Allison Meier finds the film at once moving and disquieting:

The video is definitely unsettling; Tsukimi’s project seems like a sort of Japanese version of the now defunct Possum Trot, an outsider art roadside attraction that tossed you into an uncanny valley of creakily singing dolls. However, those haunting button eyes and sewn, twisted lips capture something about a very real crisis in Japan. Most of the dolls are elderly, their faces pulled in wrinkles (the artist notes, “I’m very good at making grandmothers”). As Tsukimi explains, there was once a dam in Nagoro where hundreds of people worked; now the population is only 37. The school was closed (she’s since filled it with dolls of children, teachers, and a principal), and those still living in town are dying off. … Tsukimi started creating the dolls as scarecrows to protect her planted seeds, but after making the first one look like her father, she continued fashioning them after all of the vanishing people around her, a memento mori both for the people and the place.