One of the most accurate and subtle displays of life in its most pure form. It's the most introspective and heavy anime I've ever watched, I usually watch it when I'm in a bad state for the immersion and it helps me a lot to calm down. It's a symbolic movie, so if you want to watch it for fun, or any kind of positive emotion, you're gonna be disappointed, because it's not easy to digest and understand this film. I don't wanna be exaggeratedly assertive, so you can interpret it in your own view, but I just can't watch this movie without the point of view I'm going to share now.
The main text is about how life is chaotic, subconscious and conscious, or primitiveness and virtuousity, both exist and they are like two different worlds, and they are always connected, even though they are totally different, sometimes it's hard to distinguish them, you can't change this, it's inevitable.
Surrealism, is an artistic movement in which the artists try to portray their subconscious ideas, breaking the standard conventional logic, then creating a new logic with layers of allegory, so, every visual element shown in this movie is not literal, and they work as entire projections of related information.
The first symbols I wanna talk: the ear and the bugle. 2 of the first characters to be shown on screen, and they represent both action and reaction (in general), we are always trying to say everything that's inside our minds as possible, and we're at the same time cursed to hear what people say to us, therefore making it a bond. There are also some moments when eyes are shown, and they basically represent the same thing as the ear.
Characters don't have identity, you won't care about their names and their personalities, because they don't have any, they're intentionally made to represent mankind, in the most collective way, so everyone is just the same, it doesn't matter who they are, the protagonists are probably the same person, as a youngster and an elder, giving this idea of lack of identity.
There are also a lot of symbols related to idealism and reality, the realistic ones: underside, animals, water, the threads, the little man, a building, people inside the building, holes, giant ribs debris;
The idealistic ones: upside, light disease, lighthouse, the woman at the sky with a button head, the scissor, the dreams, the giant feather and the giant story that little man is writing, the birds, and the stairs of the building.
There are some elements like the top of the building and the ground, the universe, time, and the music, etc, that I can't distinguish if they are conscious or unconscious, since the movie is nihilist as fuck, it even portrays the ideal side as an insignificant failure, and there is a lot of subtext related to collectivity and connection, how originality and creation are illusions, and everyone is just fake puppets manipulated by fake puppets, in a loop, in which you don't know what the fuck is going on anymore.
The screenplay is perfect and subtle, so let's talk about how technical and atmospheric the production and direction are, the art is beautiful, and at the same time the lines are scribbled, it's spot on for the disharmonious essence it portrays. But what surprised me the most about this movie is the music, dude, the music is so perfect, some avant-garde stuff, that sound like modern classical and jazz, the huge variety of instruments is off the charts, exploring each timbre, with perfect arrangements, rhythm, counterpoint, polyphony and polyrhythms, and a lot of dissonance, music is the soul of this film, it's really important for the screenplay, and it makes the movie more enjoyable, since there is no dialogue, if the music sucked, it wouldn't be as good as it is.
I discovered this movie and Koji Yamamura's work recently, and I'm already calling him a genius, Ikuta no Kita is by far his best work, and it's one of the best author films I've ever had the opportunity to watch, one of my favorite animes/films ever, and I can't believe how underrated it is in every goddamn rating site, I can understand why it's such an overlooked film, because it's a completely subversive work, its form is extremely unconventional, since most of the films we are used to are primarily focused on narrative, this one is the exact opposite, it optizes image, music, poetry, and subtle languages in general over clear constructed storytelling.
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