Masaaki Yuasa's feature debut is a visually explosive ride about a young man getting a second shot at life. Screening is preceded by Yuasa's short 'Happy Machine'.
“Fear takes the shape we're willing to give it.”
Quiz time: what happens when you let Masaaki Yuasa roam freely on a film adaptation of Robin Nishi’s manga Mind Game? Answer: you get just about the most extraordinary piece of anime history. Yuasa’s film is a wacky, kaleidoscopic, completely off-the-wall anime that pushes boundaries beyond anywhere we could have imagined. There’s even a scene where the main character meets God, who – in true Yuasa fashion – morphs into various bizarre life forms, most notably a goldfish smoking a cigarette. On paper, none of it should work. But with Yuasa at the helm, impossibilities become miracles, and chaos transforms into art.
At the heart of this anarchic fever dream lies Nishi, a young man hopelessly in love with his childhood sweetheart, Myon. Now adults, Nishi dreams of marrying her and becoming a manga artist, but Myon has already accepted a proposal from someone else. However, a fateful encounter with a couple of yakuza at Myon’s family dinner upends their lives, plunging them head-first into a wild adventure. With a newly acquired look on life, he, Myon, and her sister escape the yakuza into a most unlikely location where they meet an old man…
Words can hardly capture the expressiveness of Yuasa’s feature debut. It’s a frenetic, delirious, and visually explosive ride that feels like it could have been conjured in a hallucinatory dream. Employing an eclectic mix of techniques – rotoscoping, pencil sketches, watercolours, CGI, and even papercraft – Mind Game is a testament to animation’s limitless potential. And then there’s that jaw-dropping climax, where Nishi literally runs on molecules of air. This, dear animation fans, isn’t just anime. It’s art.
Mind Game is preceded by a screening of Yuasa's short film Happy Machine. The circle of life, Masaaki Yuasa's version. An infant lives in a bright colourful nursery that caters to his every whim, only for it to suddenly break down. He then goes on a surreal odyssey of growth. As fast-paced and imaginative as anything the director does, Happy Machine offers us a fascinating view on growing up, albeit in his own intriguing visual style. This was Yuasa's first short film after 2004's Mind Game and was made as part of Studio 4°C's anthology film Genius Party.
An infant lives in a bright colorful nursery that caters to his every whim, only for it to suddenly break down; revealing a stoic and lifeless room. The floor gives way and the baby finds himself underneath a strange structure with legs containing holes in the shape of people. The baby examines his surroundings and finds his bottle, but encounters a small fire being that begins to eat everything he owns and chases him. Soon, giant water droplets full of small fish creatures fall from the sky and the baby finds sanctuary from the fire creature, though he cries afterward when the fire creature dies from getting too close to the water. The baby then meets a tall awkward creature to ride and a green plant creature that eats the baby's urine and feces to produce plants. The tall creature is swallowed by a hole while the green plant turns into a glowing seed and gets eaten by a giant flower creature, despite the baby's efforts to rescue him. Years later, the baby, now a full-grown and bearded man with prosthetic limbs, finds himself back at the structure and enters it to find another baby. He leaves some mementos and feeds her before going back down to the legs and entering the hole. This apparently jumpstarts the nursery's functions as it springs to life for the new baby. The segment ends with the phrase to be continued...
Mind Game
Masaaki Yuasa
Japan, 2004
103 min.
Nishi has always loved Myon since they were little. And now as adults, he wants to pursue his dream of becoming a manga artist and marrying his childhood sweetheart. There's one problem, though. She's already been proposed to and thinks Nishi is too much of a wimp. But upon meeting the fiancé while at her family's diner and accepting him as a good guy, they encounter a couple of yakuza, only to ha
Om de beste ervaringen te bieden, gebruiken wij technologieën zoals cookies om informatie over je apparaat op te slaan en/of te raadplegen. Door in te stemmen met deze technologieën kunnen wij gegevens zoals surfgedrag of unieke ID's op deze site verwerken. Als je geen toestemming geeft of uw toestemming intrekt, kan dit een nadelige invloed hebben op bepaalde functies en mogelijkheden.
Functioneel
Always active
De technische opslag of toegang is strikt noodzakelijk voor het legitieme doel het gebruik mogelijk te maken van een specifieke dienst waarom de abonnee of gebruiker uitdrukkelijk heeft gevraagd, of met als enig doel de uitvoering van de transmissie van een communicatie over een elektronisch communicatienetwerk.
Voorkeuren
De technische opslag of toegang is noodzakelijk voor het legitieme doel voorkeuren op te slaan die niet door de abonnee of gebruiker zijn aangevraagd.
Statistieken
De technische opslag of toegang die uitsluitend voor statistische doeleinden wordt gebruikt.De technische opslag of toegang die uitsluitend wordt gebruikt voor anonieme statistische doeleinden. Zonder dagvaarding, vrijwillige naleving door je Internet Service Provider, of aanvullende gegevens van een derde partij, kan informatie die alleen voor dit doel wordt opgeslagen of opgehaald gewoonlijk niet worden gebruikt om je te identificeren.
Marketing
De technische opslag of toegang is nodig om gebruikersprofielen op te stellen voor het verzenden van reclame, of om de gebruiker op een site of over verschillende sites te volgen voor soortgelijke marketingdoeleinden.
.jpg?format=w1200)
.jpg?format=w480)
