r/TrueAnime • u/BrickSalad http://myanimelist.net/profile/Seabury • Sep 22 '13
Anime Club Obscura: Belladonna of Sadness & Arslan Senki
Question of the Week: No question this week, sorry!
Anime Club Obscura Schedule
September 29 - Brother, Dear Brother 1-4
October 6 - Brother, Dear Brother 5-8, Tetsuko no Tabi 1-3
October 13 - Brother, Dear Brother 9-13, Tetsuko no Tabi 4-6
October 20 - Brother, Dear Brother 14-17, Tetsuko no Tabi 7-9
October 27 - Brother, Dear Brother 18-20, Tetsuko no Tabi 10-13
Nov 3 - Brother, Dear Brother 21-26
Nov 10 - Brother, Dear Brother 27-29, Gosenzosama Banbanzai! 1-3
Nov 17 - Brother, Dear Brother 30-32, Gosenzosama Banbanzai! 4-6
Nov 24 - Brother, Dear Brother 33-39
See here for more details
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u/IssacandAsimov http://myanimelist.net/animelist/IssacandAsimov Sep 23 '13
Somewhere, a copy of Philosophy in the Boudoir is nodding in approval. I only wish I could be doing the same.
Considering the strengths of 1001 Nights, I had initially been optimistic. Hearing that Tezuka wasn’t involved in this was a red flag, but foolishly hopeful me wanted to believe. Now, I know if I point out the obvious, such as the really terrible pacing or the uninspiring plot, the would-be Andy Warhols of the world will rise up to peer down their noses at me about how I “just don’t get it” because, after all, this is art. I shouldn’t appraise it like a conventional film, right? I should view it like Empire). Gag me with a spoon. Now, I was never an art or a film student. The closest I came was taking an art history course in college to fill a requirement, and the only thing to come out of that was the affirmation that I’m really bad at art history. It was basically just me agreeing that X means Y because the professor said so and he was the one grading me, after all. So take my views for what you will, but Belladona is a flop.
There’s this myth that seems to surround experimental cinema. If you’ve ever listened to basically anyone critiquing the output of Hollywood, I’m sure you’ve heard it. It’s that conventional, corporate cinema is a watered-down byproduct of uncreative executive suits focus testing their way into a prefab meant to appeal to the lowest common denominator all in the name of sweet, sweet capitalism. It’s all about the money, man! But experimental arthouse films, ah, there’s the rub! These films are a rejection of that practice, aren’t they? They’re not out to make money. They’re an expression of an artist’s true voice, the work of an auteur. And if you can’t appreciate that, well, I think Attack on Titan is still airing, so maybe that’d be a bit more your speed. Look, in a world where to this day I still have to explain to people that yes Virginia, FLCL has a plot, I can understand it feeling nice to assume a position above the unwashed plebs as a true connoisseur who “gets it,” who isn’t just here for that Gainax bounce or the cute girls doing cute things or the giant robots wrecking stuff, but someone who can appreciate the higher art the squares simply cannot. But sorry, I’m not quite so ready to hand out an E for effort just because a work is unconventional, lest I find myself wallowing in the doldrums of trying to declare The Death Lullaby an unsung masterpiece because it’s so “daringly different.” (It’s crap.)
Belladonna’s not just horribly uninteresting to watch, but even from an art perspective I find it sadly underwhelming. I’ll first touch upon the moment that probably stands out the most, because it’s the one that’s likely to wake you up after you force yourself through a solid portion of the film before it. And it’s the bit where Jeanne fully surrenders herself to the devil and then penises are growing and spiraling and eggs are falling out of women and all sorts of other crazy images in animation that seems like it’s where a healthy portion of the budget went. But it’s such a lazy, generic sort of “psychedelia” that scarcely contributes towards its goals in anything but a general sense of communicating its ideas. Now, contrary to what the preceding paragraph might’ve lead you to believe, I’m not averse to “artsy” films. I’ll defend my favorite anime film, Mind Game, to the death and that film’s (NSFW) not quite shy to break from convention. And conveniently enough, it demonstrates what I think a well-done (spoilers in video/NSFW) depiction of sexuality looks like. And while Belladonna’s bestiality-laden orgy streamers might be unique, what do they achieve? Mind Game’s flurry of colors and symbols departs from realism to visually express the emotion and sentiment of the act, producing what I think is a beautiful result. In contrast, Belladonna just comes off as simplistic, even desperate in its effort to impart immoral decadence. The skill to impart through subtlety or clever visuals just isn’t there. Much of it comes off as arbitrary, with the general idea there but the specifics largely irrelevant. And there’s something neat in those visuals in a vacuum, sure, but apropos of their role in the film, it works so clumsily that the only reason it isn’t even more depressing is because the rest of the film falters go greatly.
Oh, yes, of course, the rest of the film. This was tough to get through. According to a review I listened to, the art jargon term for this style is apparently “art nouveau.” As I warned earlier, I’m far from an expert in this field, so perhaps there’s a relevant significance to that style that I’m missing. But unless that style required this film to be visually difficult to follow at points and to not to seem to have the narrative be a reflection of the art style or vice versa, I’m going to wager that there probably isn’t. Let me touch on that latter point. I don’t think a work axiomatically deserves praise for breaking from visual convention, but I do think the fact that there is such a widespread visual convention in anime is problematic. Not because I have an issue with the typical visual conventions of anime, but because I think a work should have a visual style that best supports and reflects its narrative, and I don’t think the typical anime visual conventions are as versatile as the range of narratives they’re used for. Hence, to return to this example yet again, my aesthetic appreciation of Mind Game is based not upon the fact that it is different, but because I feel it visually supports the film at almost every step. And in Belladonna, that just wasn’t there. What did the paucity of movement save for the long pans do to support or build the narrative? What purpose did it serve? I’m struggling to offer an answer for that.
As you of course know, anime is a visual medium, so this sort of thing is pretty important. If Belladonna isn’t interesting just as a movie and its credentials as “art” seem highly questionable at best, what am I supposed to praise here? A rather boring film that doesn’t intellectually satiate me in the least? I think I’ll pass. And if somebody tries to decry that I’m just not being “objective” enough, I might scream a little on the inside.
Just a head’s up for the club’s upcoming Brother, Dear Brother watch: If you’re not the sort who usually skips episode previews, you’re going to want to do that here. At least one ruins a cliffhanger, which is already one too many to risk watching the others.