Pako to mahō no ehon

An incredible Japanese visually stunning film. The beauty lies in the fact that it is unbelievably kitschy, yet incredibly imaginative at the same time. It's like overdosing on something really sweet and then seeing everything through cotton candy. Beautiful colors, beautiful ideas, incredible combination of 3D and classic animation, and on top of that, a beautiful story. A bit like "Big Fish," but from a child's perspective and much more bizarre. Still, it remains beautiful. When people say that the Japanese can create things you won't see anywhere else, this is one of them. It's not explicitly perverse, but visually beautiful and, true, quite bizarre. However, the positive impressions clearly prevail. (2014.03.13)