This was yet another one of my brother's gift films, and we spent the previous night watching it. With a name like Belladonna of Sadness, I was expecting something romantic, but I had no idea that I was about to watch a movie that genuinely infuriated me. This is why.
Packed into its 86 minutes of run time, the plot here isn't always followed, but instead gives way for significant amounts of filler scenes that are only there to depict weird things that would be best for me to not mention on IMDb. Only some of these gory or erotic scenes are pertinent to the actual story surrounding Jeanne, but even then they are way too exaggerated and most of them feel pointless. Maybe I have poor taste as a film critic in movies like this, but this movie brings up significantly more questions than it answers. The characters are a similar mess, with a bunch of questionable things being done by Jeanne and, unsurprisingly, Satan himself. Some of these actions, such as a good amount of what Jeanne does to the village, contribute to this movie's borderline over-saturation of filler material. The music is probably the best thing about this movie, as it does complement each filler scene well. It's not as good as the music in some other movies, but it's probably the one thing about this movie I can safely praise. I can commend the animation for using a different style than most Japanese animation, but it's shockingly inconsistent; I counted 5 distinct styles of animation, with 4 of them being used for the filler. It depicts things that could have worked if it had more context (as in, relevant to the plot), but since it doesn't, its only purpose is just showing us the imagery. Personally, I dislike such choices by the crew. As good an idea it is for animation to invoke more than one style in a movie, it was not done properly here. At the very least, its animation stands out, and that alone gives this movie slightly more credit. Maybe I'm too simple to understand anything this movie said, but most of this film just took my brain and drowned it in boiling oil.
I can't guarantee that you will enjoy this film even if you enjoy erotic or psychedelic material, let alone animation in the first place. Think of this film as the slightly exorcised love child of anything by Unearthed Films (the psychedelic and erotic imagery) and Plumbers Don't Wear Ties (most of the film, especially the portions fitting the plot, is just a slideshow with voices over it). Like those two, this is not something I can recommend to the common viewer. Oh, and if you suffer from seizures, avoid this film completely. There are two scenes that go way too overboard with multi-colored strobes.
Packed into its 86 minutes of run time, the plot here isn't always followed, but instead gives way for significant amounts of filler scenes that are only there to depict weird things that would be best for me to not mention on IMDb. Only some of these gory or erotic scenes are pertinent to the actual story surrounding Jeanne, but even then they are way too exaggerated and most of them feel pointless. Maybe I have poor taste as a film critic in movies like this, but this movie brings up significantly more questions than it answers. The characters are a similar mess, with a bunch of questionable things being done by Jeanne and, unsurprisingly, Satan himself. Some of these actions, such as a good amount of what Jeanne does to the village, contribute to this movie's borderline over-saturation of filler material. The music is probably the best thing about this movie, as it does complement each filler scene well. It's not as good as the music in some other movies, but it's probably the one thing about this movie I can safely praise. I can commend the animation for using a different style than most Japanese animation, but it's shockingly inconsistent; I counted 5 distinct styles of animation, with 4 of them being used for the filler. It depicts things that could have worked if it had more context (as in, relevant to the plot), but since it doesn't, its only purpose is just showing us the imagery. Personally, I dislike such choices by the crew. As good an idea it is for animation to invoke more than one style in a movie, it was not done properly here. At the very least, its animation stands out, and that alone gives this movie slightly more credit. Maybe I'm too simple to understand anything this movie said, but most of this film just took my brain and drowned it in boiling oil.
I can't guarantee that you will enjoy this film even if you enjoy erotic or psychedelic material, let alone animation in the first place. Think of this film as the slightly exorcised love child of anything by Unearthed Films (the psychedelic and erotic imagery) and Plumbers Don't Wear Ties (most of the film, especially the portions fitting the plot, is just a slideshow with voices over it). Like those two, this is not something I can recommend to the common viewer. Oh, and if you suffer from seizures, avoid this film completely. There are two scenes that go way too overboard with multi-colored strobes.