Killing Commendatore is a handcrafted pop-up book I made from a discarded cardboard box, inspired by the novel of the same name by Haruki Murakami, one of my favorite authors. It stands as a compact experiment in spatial narrative and paper theater.

I hollowed out the entire front face of the box and painted the surrounding frame dark blue. It functions like a theater curtain framing the layered scenes inside, lending the interior a stage-like immersive quality. Within the box, I built four progressive visual planes out of thick rigid cardstock, with progressively smaller cutouts that keep every layer fully visible from the outside. Unlike flat illustration, this structure naturally builds depth. The piece can stand upright as a tabletop ornament, serving both as a three-dimensional picture frame and a frozen scene of paper theater.

The visuals trace the core plot of the novel: from the protagonist’s first-person perspective, we witness the moment the Commendatore is killed, with a dwarf standing by in stunned shock. The protagonist then steps into the “tunnel” of the story, passing surging ocean waves, a faceless man in black, and the real tunnel in his own backyard. Finally, he climbs out of the tunnel by flashlight, re-emerges into daylight, and looks up to see the moon hanging above the forest.

This work also carries room for experimental reflection. A deeper cardboard box would have allowed for more narrative layers, and an accordion-fold side structure could have achieved a more immersive “tunnel book” effect. These considerations have continued to inform my exploration of pop-up book creation.