Pako to mahō no ehon

An incredible Japanese film that is visually stunning. The beauty lies in its unbelievably kitschy yet incredibly imaginative nature. It's like overdosing on something very sweet and then seeing everything through cotton candy. Beautiful colors, beautiful ideas, incredible integration of 3D and traditional animation, plus a lovely story on top of it all. It’s a bit like Big Fish, but from a child's perspective, and much wilder. It’s still beautiful, though. When people say that the Japanese can create things you won't see anywhere else, this is one of those things. It's not explicitly perverse, but it is visually beautiful and, indeed, quite bizarre. Positive impressions definitely prevail, though. (13.03.2014)