Bunraku

Saw Bunraku (thanks, Basil!) It was an excessive film. It was lit in harsh, ugly, clashing colors with a heavy dose of chiaroscuro on a set that looks like slightly tamed German expressionism with characters that are explicitly cardboard cut-out archetypes. The film merrily mixes cowboy, samurai, and circus imagery with martial arts, comic books and just a hint of video-game, all with a kooky swing-dance soundtrack. I feel nerd-bated in a way that's only mostly pleasant. This film looses a lot by being on my little screen. There were a few scenes I could tell were supposed to overwhelm me, but of course it's hard for 1 square foot of monitor to overwhelm.

The plot is a giant mishmash of stuff. Set in the post-apocalyptic future a cowboy and a samurai team up to take down the evil big boss of the city who is a woodcutter because a reaper would be too obvious. The townsfolk are helping via some kind of resistance and there are rival gangs tearing up neighborhoods. There's a lot of unnecessary stuff going on and I wonder if it was released with an accompanying comic book (ala Southland Tales, another beautiful mess.)

There's some pretensions to an epic good-vs-evil, allegorical reading of the film (the characters are both sent by their fathers and talk of being Men. The narrator claims this to be a universal, timeless story.) but really it has all the depth of a magician's stage patter. It's there primarily to bamboozle you into accepting a town with a wild west district (called Little Westworld, cutely.) and for getting your brain to sit down and let your eyes see. This is kind of a pity because the whole mess of violently different plots and settings winds up becoming kind of flatly homogeneous instead of the interesting collage I wanted.

My enjoyment suffers a bit due to jaded cynicism (as I say, I felt bated for some of the film. I would have enjoyed it better when I was younger and more willing to be manipulated.) and my itty-bitty screen, but even so, the film was delightfully ridiculous and pretty to look at. Like a roller coaster, it's a wild ride that's mighty pushy but fun while it lasts.

PS - The film stars Gackt, who is the prettiest dude on earth. Final Fantasy characters are based off of him, that's how inhumanly pretty this dude is.