Popular reviews

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  Review by Edgar Cochran ✝️ ★★★★★ 13

  ***One of the best 150 films I have ever seen.***

  Autobiographical, poetic, analytical, cathartic, honest and masterfully uneven. Terayama is highly influenced by Fellini's take on the disturbed mind of earthly circumstances and addresses it with Jodorowskian surreal elements. This strange hybrid, though, deepens quite enough into the realm of the psyche; it is a never-ending spinning wheel of philosophy, epiphanies and forbidden passions, an inevitable and prolonged soliloquy to come to terms with oneself's existence which, in the end, provokes nothing more than accepting the surrounding reality, a concept geniously represented by the torn-down walls in the end.

  100/100

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  Review by reibureibu ★★★★½ 7

  A kaleidoscopic scrapbook of adolescent memories, filtered and remembered through the perspective of poetry and theater. There's rarely a moment when we truly know what is happening on-screen, but considering that the events in the film is a Bretchian performance filmed by a director within the film and the line between what is filmed and what is dreamed (if there even is a difference between the two) is murky at best, it's safe to say that the best way to approach this is just to submit yourself to the bevy of multicolored scenes and piece it all together when the walls come crashing down.

  And like all confusing childhood experiences, what we see is perhaps a representation of real-life as…

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  Review by Robert Beksinski ★★★★½ 22

  Pastoral: To Die in the Country is Japanese surrealism at its most wildly imaginative. Everything about the film makes it a sensory experience to be indulged in. The lush collage of color utilized between filters and scenery, and the use of unnatural sound puts the viewer's senses on high alert. It's simply mesmerizing.

  Shûji Terayama is a director I am personally unfamiliar with, but it seems apparent everywhere I look that this film (basically his sophomore feature effort) is his proclaimed magnum opus. However, this is the tip of the iceberg for me and I cannot wait to get my hands on more of his work. His display of talent in this film alone purports his stature of being one…

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  Review by Jerry McGlothlin ★★★★ 19

  A broken clock on the wall ticks backwards in a peculiar rhythm: a broken unit trapped inside this home where young men yearn to put time in their pockets.

  Confronting an existence that has been shaped and embellished by a mind that cannot recall a time where it was not in search of an escape from the bounds of insignificance.

  Red roses are ripped from the ground, eaten by rotten monsters with yellow fangs and widened eyes.

  Somnambulism—skies colored brightly, lakes shimmering in the sunlight, dusks of harlequin horizons; it’s like living inside a dream, walking along the tracks of sentiment.

  The young man seeks fulfillment. So, too, does the circus woman, yet they must both pursue this satisfaction on…

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  Review by Rod Sedgwick ★★★★★ 4

  ''I shall cut off my eyelids to see better, the razor blade reflects the horizon.''

  Wow, am I glad this one jumped out at me as I browsed for a film to watch on a chilly Friday night. As I hit play and poured some wine to keep me warm, I knew only of this film's acclaim as a visionary surrealist work, and therefore my expectation was only to hopefully be impressed...

  Well damn, pick me up off the floor and wipe the drool from the corner of my mouth, I am knocked out!

  This is likely an autobiographical work from Japanese avant-garde filmmaker Shuji Terayama, which may seem like a simple coming of age tale with a canvas splattered…

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  Review by Sally Jane Black

  Terayama's avant garde biographical tale is a beautiful, surreal, colorful experience. It wanders through his childhood, allowing him to face himself 20 years before both literally and figuratively, and fills the spaces with strange characters, odd asides, and bright colors. It's hard to completely encompass this film here; there's so much to unpack.

  There's so much symbolism, to begin with. From the color palettes and filters to the more direct Oedipal moments, from the discussions on memory to the circus full of weirdos and freaks, it's all intense and dense but not unfathomably so. This is a truly amazing film that I will have to revisit soon.

  December count: 17/100.

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  Review by Anas Zwahri 1

  في أحد المشاهد يسأل شوجي تيراياما نفسه : هل التجارب الماضية و طبيعة الحياة التي عشناها في مرحلة الطفولة والفترات ما بعد الطفولة المبكرة هي السبب الرئيسي في تكوين شخصيتنا الحالية أم لا, فهل السعادة الحالية التي نعيشها الأن نتيجة لتراكم تلك الأحداث التي مررنا بها والمدفونة في العقل الباطن و كذلك الكئابة والحزن على حد سواء , فالشخص السعيد يصبح أكثر سعادة والحزين يصبح أكثر حزننا مع الأيام , ومهما حاولت أن تبعد هذه الذكريات القديمة لكي تواصل حياتك الحالية فهي لن ترحل لأنها هي التي شكلتك هي جزء منك مهما كانت مأساوية وحتى لو لم تكن تدرك ذلك و لكن عقلك الباطني يمارس هذه العادة كل لحظة وفي كل دقيقة ..
  أما بالنسة للأدباء و الفنانين والسينمائين تعد…

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  Review by Graham ★★★★ 8

  Ethereal, poetic
  Theatre of dreams
  Children transformed
  Lilac light, eternal fright
  Internal music of life
  Hopes
  Dreams
  Futures

  Naked, delicious
  Yearning
  Older, I watch
  I see life
  I am life
  Lost, in a dream

  Me, 2021

  Stunningly gorgeous and absolutely bonkers, this mid 70's twisted piece of Japanese chaos and purist art is just what I needed today.

  45 years before Nolan... don't try to understand - just feel it.

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  Review by Noah DiVincenzo ★★★★½ 4

  A dream within a dream
  A vision within a vision
  A poem within a poem
  A painting within a painting
  A past that can never be changed

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  Review by maddie ★★★★★

  what's your first memory? i was only two years old, living in the suburbs outside of Birmingham, Alabama when i had first, and for pretty much the last time until recently, discovered snow. i kept getting pieces of ice from the snow stuck to my mittens while my brother pelted me with snowballs, which he seemed to have made so effortlessly. afterwards, my dad led me inside to a heater, which he proceeded to drop an ice cube into. i can still hear the distinct crackling sizzle, in my mind, still see the blueness of the room from reflected light on snow pouring in through the windows.

  how much of this is truth? what really happened back then? how much…

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  Review by 19oldboy91 ★★★★ 8

  Um den wilden Reigen ineinander überlappenden Farben, ein buntes Geflecht verschwommener, schemenhafter Erinnerungen um das Erwachsenwerden, erleben wir eben das:

  Das Wachsen um das Ringen und Hadern seiner Entscheidungen, wie das zum Leben erwachte Bildmaterial, als das zurückblätternde Fotoalbum oder die zurück gespulte Videokassette und das Überspielen seiner Taten.

  Darin hinein reihen sich knallbunte, pastellartige Bilder um die verklärte Jungend nebst dem Flüchten ihrer in traumartigen Welten, in denen selbst der eigene Fußboden einem Tür und Tor zu ihr öffnet.

  Unser Führer sind musikuntermalte Abschnitte ihrer mit einem der besten, gesungenen Soundtracks denn ich – der selten darin Gefallen findet – aus dem asiatischen Raum je hören durfte, und die meine Neugierde nach weiteren Werken von Shuji Terayama weiter festigte.

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  Review by 🥀 Berenice ★★★★★ 2

  "Come back, Mom, and give birth to me a second time. Without you, I can never change."

  Watercolor memories are all we have left of childhood. The looming reality of adult relationships, dynamics and sexuality seem like an ominous sleight of hand devised to confound and even terrify. Or so it seems to the main character. Age has cast a new light on the situations he floated through as a boy. It's time to fashion a new masquerade for all the people in his memory, now characters. Maybe then disgust might transmute into acceptance. But probably not. 

  How do you come to terms with the unspeakable? You write a story.

  A rich tapestry of a film that deftly mixes abstract fantasy with realism. Up there with Valerie's Week of Wonders in expressing the pure, unadulterated horror of growing up.