meta: Surrealism
2020
'Malice@Doll': The Machine's Last Love Song November 18, 2020
Half adult OVA of the 90s/00s home-video era, half experimental stop-motion art film, and while not entirely successful it's still worth a look for its low-fi digital aesthetic
0 Comments
'Boogiepop': The Antibody Has A Voice August 03, 2020
Kouhei Kadono's knotty novels walk us backwards through the tangled stories surrounding a being that arises just long enough to right the world when it has fallen out of joint
0 Comments
'Tokyo Fist': The Players Of Bloodsport July 06, 2020
Shinya Tsukamoto's blood-soaked, bare-knuckled psychodrama gives us two men in competition for a woman -- but it's the woman who wins
0 Comments
2019
'Izo': Takashi Miike's Death (And Resurrection) Mantra November 11, 2019
Even longtime Takashi Miike fans were alienated by this mix of Miike's fetishes, 'Slaughterhouse-Five', and William S. Burroughs's space-age shamanism, but it deserves fresh eyes and open minds
0 Comments
Akio Jissōji's 'The Buddhist Trilogy' September 09, 2019
Almost totally unseen outside Japan, these three art projects by a director best known for his 'Ultraman' work are anything but easy viewing, but also seething with vision and ambition
0 Comments
Tomihiko Morimi's 'The Night Is Short, Walk on Girl': How One Thing Leads To Another September 02, 2019
This newly translated novel, the basis for Masaaki Yuasa's madcap movie, is just as wild as its successor, with the advantage of slightly more insight into its female protagonist
0 Comments
2018
'An Invitation From A Crab': Dreamland Hyperspace December 31, 2018
panpanya's English-language debut rubs shoulders comfortably with the likes of 'Nichijou' for slice-of-life strangeness, but swathed in a far darker atmosphere
0 Comments
'The Night Is Short, Walk On Girl': To The Break Of Dawn August 24, 2018
Masaaki Yuasa's dizzying mini-epic begins as boy-seeks-girl and ends by circumnavigating entire universes of possibility
0 Comments
'Animerama: Cleopatra': God Of Manga Meets Queen Of Nile July 20, 2018
The second of Tezuka's 'Animerama' productions for adults works best as a showcase for Tezuka's imaginative visuals, less so as a story or even as a spoof of Hollywood excess
0 Comments
'Animerama: A Thousand And One Nights': Tezuka's Erotic Follies July 13, 2018
The first of Osamu Tezuka's experimental trilogy of animated films for adults is a fascinating time capsule that swerves between visionary and puerile
0 Comments
'Kyōsōgiga': And You Thought Your Parents Were Weird? July 07, 2018
Buddhist lore, supernatural slapstick action, and domestic drama all combine to make this idiosyncractic instant classic
0 Comments
'Perfect Blue': Even Better Than The Real Thing February 16, 2018
Satoshi Kon's hallucinatory, jolting feature film debut still electrifies -- all the more so in light of how its recently translated source novel was a sub-'Silence Of The Lambs' stalk-and-slash thriller
0 Comments
2017
'Funeral Parade Of Roses': Party Like It's 1969 November 24, 2017
More than forty years later, Toshio Matsumoto's psychedelic whirlpool of counterculture sexuality and continuity-shattering New Wave filmmaking remains a one-of-a-kind blast of cinematic fresh air
0 Comments
'Mind Game': You Can Live ... Or You Can Live It Up November 14, 2017
Masaaki Yuasa's psychedelic masterwork is the 'Joe Vs. The Volcano' of animated films, about daring to snatch life from the jaws of the world
0 Comments
'Kaiba': This Body Holding Me October 24, 2017
Masaaki Yuasa's psychedelic exploration of the mutability of bodies and memories, in the form of a child's tale, is a one-of-a-kind masterwork
0 Comments
Seijun Suzuki's 'Taishō Trilogy': Erotic, Grotesque, Romantic September 18, 2017
Japan's Roaring Twenties are both backdrop and stage for these three excursions into the delirious, the decadent, and the surreal
0 Comments
'Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence': Farewell, My Lovely February 22, 2017
Everything that was both grand and frustrating about Oshii's original 'Ghost In The Shell' film is redoubled in its follow-up, a visionary work that neglects to give its characters their own voices
0 Comments
'The Tatami Galaxy': Have I Been In This Room Before? February 13, 2017
When the director of 'Mind Game' and the author of 'The Eccentric Family' got together, they created a comedic masterpiece that plays like 'Groundhog Day' fused with both of those visionary projects
0 Comments
2016
'Neji-shiki'/'Screwed': A Peek Into The Pit December 27, 2016
How to film Yoshiharu Tsuge's landmark work of surrealist comics? Leave it to master of weirdness Teruo Ishii, albeit with mixed results
0 Comments
'Ergo Proxy': I Think, Therefore You Are November 21, 2016
Few anime intended for mainstream consumption are this avowedly experimental; fewer still pull it off to the degree this one does
0 Comments