Wednesday 1 July 2015

A curious dream..

I've had my Woodland Wedding set for a few months now & I deliberately held off sharing photos of it because I wanted to wait & share it on this blog once I started posting here. 

The set was made by Tomy & came out (I believe) in 1996.  It includes 4 Solitaire family grey cats - groom Humphrey Solitaire, bride Prunella Solitaire, page boy Zack Solitaire & bridesmaid Zara Solitaire, along with a white piano with a stool & music sheets, a wedding arch, a bouquet, a camera & photographs, a tiered wedding cake, a bottle & glasses, a large table with benches & tablecloth, wedding gifts & confetti boxes.

The Solitaire cat family were high up on my wishlist of families to get, I love cats & would love to have more Sylvanian cat families, but I'll admit that I am a little weird about Sylvanians with markings (& sadly most of the cat familys have strong markings on their heads).  Out of the families I have so far, only 1 (the Appleblossom grey squirrels) have markings on their heads or faces, & I love them, but most of the figures with markings on the head or face just aren't my cup of tea.

I tend to prefer the single coloured & plainer figures & the Solitaires are one of the few cat families with more subtle markings & so they were a must have for me, but overall it's such a pretty & well designed set.  I haven't got around to photographing all the small accessories yet, as I plan on scanning the card parts before I cut them out & fold them, but hopefully I'll get around to taking photos of those too eventually.












Another part of this sets appeal for me was because the name of the set reminds me of the magical Sunshine Through the Rain segment in Akira Kurosawa's film Dreams (1990) which is based on the tale of Kitsune no Yomeiri (The Fox Wedding).
On a day when the sun shines bright and the rain falls, wise parents advise their children to play indoors. It isn’t that they are worried about them catching a cold. No, it is something more mysterious. For on such days the kitsune, the magical foxes of Japan, hold their wedding processions.  
I saw Dreams at the cinema when it was originally released here in the UK & the Sunshine Through the Rain segment gave me chills then, & still does.  I love Japanese folklore & kaidan (ghost storys).



I'd love to see a Sylvanian recreation of this tale in a diorama, wouldn't that be lovely!?