Pompo the Cinephile is a film about everything a manic, starry-eyed filmmaker may imagine a film to be while actually being just about none of those things. From the soulless delivery of film techniques and inspirational advice, to the rose colored depiction of damaging aspects of the creative industry, my eyes slowly glazed over watching this ironic tragedy.

I often say that if a work surrounding an interest or philosophy lacks heart, then I might as well be reading a wiki page. This film is wiki content at its finest, introducing and narrating everything like a documentary, yet even a legitimate documentary would more likely grant greater depth and humanity in its education. The meta filmmaking techniques read out over vaguely related animation could be legitimately useful for an amateur, aspiring filmmaker, and yet I would understand and be intrigued simply reading them on paper. It's almost laughable how much is dryly told to the audience rather than shown. The enthusiasm Gene, the character who serves as director, does show for his craft comes across through dramatic visuals and music, yet bombasticity is not a replacement for real character depth. He carries about a notebook filled with his notes from watching films and being on set, yet the love and dedication never leaves those pages. Instead, again and again we have metaphorical editing scenes of Gene slicing up strips of film with a sword, and a montage of him imagining himself as a character in the story without any explained revelation or meaning to that imagery beyond that he had supposedly found his own style. One short scene of the film does get into a bit of his editing process, and I had hoped to see much more of that. Even then, his decisions lacked any connection to this supposed personal touch he had as a director which Pompo, the producer, believed would make the film great. Here we have yet another bland Shirobako, with the energy of Eizouken, yet none of its passion. It helped a lot that the latter surrounded kids making something all on their own. Here we have a full-blown production, so the sardoodledom of both the movie and its movie within the movie is unfortunate. Especially as the film approached its climax, the campy asspulls continued one after another.

The film gets caught up in blindly glorifying certain harmful aspects of the industry rather than making any witty criticisms. Even in a man’s world, the women could have been treated a little more seriously rather than only a pretty face for the male gaze. More central to the movie’s message though, is the endorsement of the artist’s necessary sacrifice. Ironically this film feels as if it were a self insert piece, crafted by a cinephile themself, who doesn't know how to apply their knowledge with tact. The entire thing comes across as an artist’s fever dream in how nicely everything goes for this supposed heroic and selfless outcast. I could swear I've already seen this movie before in my daydreams as a child, only able to think in extremes. Especially romantic is the discipline to trim away all else in life for the purpose of channeling everything towards the creation of a masterpiece—that you must live a life of hardship and loneliness to create real beauty in your art. The world is not painted in blacks and whites, and only by experiencing everything in moderation can you find all the colors it has to offer. I can’t bring myself to appreciate a film which encourages those who are isolated and have extreme tendencies to damage themselves further. All that being said, Gene's directing journey paralleling his own work is a nice touch if a tad too campy. Perhaps more focus on how movies helped him understand himself could have saved the film from blatant mistreatment of its subjects.

I will say though, Pompo (the character) is incredibly based in her opinion on one thing. The shorter a story, the better. Trim away the fluff, and get to the point. A truly great storyteller knows how to use the bare minimum to allow the audience to fill in the gaps with their own imagination. However, the beauty in minimalism is the impressionistic quality. Simple emotions given the time on screen to sink into you can create entire stories in your mind. However, in its execution of these ideas, the film doesn’t give itself the space to breath and instead regurgitates Gene's unpolished notebooks verbatim onto the screen. Rather than even a B movie with a beautiful actress to sell it, we just have an offensive movie and a man with constant bags under his eyes. At least it was an hour and thirty minutes.