federicopistono

I am intimately familiar with the filmmaker, Peter Joseph.

I know him, professionally, and personally.

I enjoyed watching the Zeitgeist film series.

While I have many reservations about the content of the three movies, they undoubtedly had a style to be recognized and appreciated. They had a clear tone and a direction.

I had hopes for Joseph's latest creation, Interreflections, which has been in the making for almost a decade.

While I may disagree with the man and his worldview, I can appreciate an artist's work independently.

I tried watching Interreflections.

I really did.

It was quite literally the worst thing I've ever seen in my life.

I've indulged B-movies, C-rated actors, and plain bad stuff. I can endure 10 minutes of something like sharknado every few years.

No problem.

But I couldn't watch this garbage for more than two minutes straight. I had to skip through to see if it got any better at some point.

It didn't.

The green screen is so unbelievably bad it makes everything feel fake beyond imagination.

The acting is even worse.

The plot is non-existent.

I think the major problem of this film is that it can't decide what it is.

Is it a documentary? Is it a fiction? A docu-fiction?

There are scenes where there seems to be a genuine interview with a scientist. And yet, it's painfully obvious that those words did not come out naturally. They were scripted, and badly.

The drama doesn't feel like one. If I wanted to explain to my students at a film school what terrible filmmaking is and why, I would show a scene from Interreflections, and have them analyze it.

It'd be a great exercise.

Interreflections is the perfect example of what you should not do as a filmmaker.

It pretends to portray a new point of view, while it simply rehashes old ideologies, minus the insight or the wittiness.

It wants to be a drama, but has no story and no structure.

It tries to make you think and question authority, but all it does is provide a different kind of propaganda.

Between the atrocious use of green screen, the terrible acting, and the condescending pandering of both the interviews and the "plot", I could not follow anything for more than 60 seconds.

I can't believe Joseph spent half a million and worked for 8 years on this garbage.

There is a silver lining though.

If I ever teach filmmaking techniques to my students, I will refer to this film as a step-by-step guide on what not to do.

Few stories can capture your mind and soul in a visceral way from the beginning, and never leave you. Berserk is one of them.

Written and illustrated by the legendary manga artist Kentaro Miura, Berserk (ベルセルク) is an epic fantasy saga that knows no time, no boundaries, and no has end. It tells the story of a Guts (ガッツ, Gattsu), a boy born from the corpse of a woman hung on a battlefield, who struggles to fight his unfortunate destiny. Set in a fictional version of medieval Europe, Gatsu is a young mercenary who travels with no direction nor purpose, swinging his huge sword in merciless fights in order to survive. He buries his blade deep into the flesh of his opponents, fighting like a madmen in battle, reminiscent of the nordic berserks, coming closer and closer to death, maybe to finally feel alive. His life is meaningless, his actions have no honor nor reason, except survival. He strives to escape his nature, that of a man born from a dead body, already between this world and the other, with nothing to lose except his miserable life.

That is, until he meets Griffith, the impossibly beautiful and charismatic leader of the undefeated mercenary band called "the Band of the Hawk" (鷹の団 Taka no Dan). This encounter will forever change his life, and that of everyone else.

Beware, Berserk is not an ordinary series. It is hard, violent, and not easy to follow. There are no flashbacks constantly reminding you of what happened before, no fill-in episodes, no sweetening of the pill. It is a solid punch of crude reality hitting you in the stomach, and you have no way of guarding yourself. Miura's genius permeates in each page, down to every minute detail. The themes treated are difficult, and never simplified for the sake of the reader. Reality has no shortcuts, no easy way, and that is reflected in the story. The characters in Berserk are genuine, real, endlessly complicated, troubled. They hold secrets, they cheat, murder, conspire, but they are also capable of great kindness. Friendship, ambition, causality, the supernatural, our ambivalent nature, the struggle for power, love and hate. Twenty-two years in, still going strong, in what is possibly one of the greatest stories ever told.

With that premise, you would think that the task of turning such a story into a series of animated feature films would be arduous. And you would be right. Only an animation studio capable of immense greatness could be up to the task. STUDIO4°C is one such group.

From the opening scene we know what kind of film we are dealing with. A clear, peaceful blue sky is contrasted by the presence of ominous birds flying in circles, while balls of fire fly over them. Guts looks up at the sky with sad eyes, a scar in the middle of his nose and a helmet on his head immediately tell us what he is. A heartless mercenary. The deaden sound of the blasting gives us a hint of where we are. Everything moves slowly, as if underwater, or inside a womb. How appropriate for someone who was born in a battlefield, who is neither truly alive nor dead, until he begins to fight. Gatsu's heart starts pounding, as he watches a black hawk fall down, the sound increases, until the bird drops dead in the middle of the fight, crushed beneath the boots of armed mercenaries, assaulting a castle. That is the time when the sound rises up at full blast, and we are catapulted into the battle.

The fight is cruel and violent, unlike anything I have even seen. The Lord of the Rings, Braveheart, Game of Thrones, list what you want, nothing compares to the level of horrifying realism that Berserk has to offer. The animation is top notch, the colours vivid and stunning, you could take any frame from the film, hang it on the wall, and it would work as a painting on itself.

The soundtrack by Shiro Sagisu is perfectly calibrated to match the already spectacular animation sequence, the epic chorus elevates the scenes to a sense of greatness, without ever overdoing it. The first eight minutes are a masterpiece of action down to the last second, flawlessly directed by the talented Toshiyuki Kubooka.

In every moment we can see something in motion, be it the clouds in the background or the hair on someone's face, the level of maniacal details is lessened only by the overuse of 3D animation (which is a bit irritating at times). But action sequences of crude violence, great animation, and impeccable sound effects are just a spec of dust in the whole opera. The real value lies in the moments of silence, when the characters quietly ponder about their lives, or study each other, looking into their souls. We can see through their fears, their dreams and aspirations, their hate, without them needing to utter many words. And the few words that are spoken weight a million tons.

Berserk Golden Age Arc I: The Egg of the King covers volumes 4,5 and half of 6, each of which requires a few hours to read, all delivered in 70 minutes. As you can imagine, they had to make some choices and not everything was included. When this happens, the story usually loses value, the characters are simplified, and everything becomes dull. Surprisingly, this is not the case here. The first part of the Berserk Saga Project, which should cover the Golden Age Arc of Berserk does not disappoint. In fact, it excels, in both execution and presentation. The climatic drama and the anticipated tragedy yet to come reach the peak at the end of the film, accompanied by an epic final score by Susumu Hirasawa.

STUDIO4°C has delivered a compelling and engaging story, masterfully animated and directed, which breathed life to Miura's pencil, and gave it voice.

Full review: http://goo.gl/8HNpB

Attention, there may be spoilers. Blue Submarine Number 6

Animation [8]/10

The style and the realisation are audacious. Before this 1998 GONZO story there were very few studios who actually got into the 3D GCI at this level. They tried, at least I can give them that. Blue Submarine n.6 is what I call an experiment. In fact, many things inside it resemble what will be the GONZO masterpiece Last Exile, both the characters (especially the female one) and the animation. The 3D is not a good technical achievement, but surely is a good start. The CGI does not fuse homogeneously with the drawings, and the designer noticed it. But then the director said it was OK, as people would get used to it.

In fact, after a while you DO get used to it, if you are not too picky, but the very fact that there are only 6 OVA makes the attempt utterly futile, because the animation becomes familiar when the anime is about to finish...

I do have to thank them in any case, because it is thanks to this anime that we have been blessed with Last Exile.

Sound [7] /10

The jazz songs during the naval combats are quite a catch, I would say they resemble something of Cowboy Bebop, even though they're not as appropriate as the Sunrise Inc. production's. The overall sound is not remarkable, though, it lacks of a theme that can be remembered through the episodes.

A part from the fighting scenes there is no evident music that adapts to the story, hence in the end it becomes monotone. And also let us not forget that there is no melodic/sentimental song that matches the final scenes of the series, something like Arcadia by Yoko Kanno. Well, this is not Escaflowne (sound [10] /10).

Story [7] /10

Blue Submarine Number 6 This story is something already seen a million times, the Earth has been gradually destroyed by the human exploitation of the natural resources, therefore the planet is now "rebelling" against the human species. Though there are some differences, the plot is very similar to others (Escaflowne, Last Exile, Nausicaa of the valley of the wind, just to name a few), here the one who takes the responsibility to destroy humans for their sins is a scientist that was working along with those who exploited the planet in the first place. In this case it makes much more sense, and the whole reason for the war seems to be somehow justified.

There are also some bad points about the story. The most interesting parts are the inner psychology of Zorndyke and the relationship between Tetsu Hayami and the pseudo mermaid.. What did they do? They relegated these two topics into micro-moments, that apparently are a marginal part of the story. The director wanted to concentrate on the battle and the animation, because while looking at the special I discovered that he was almost obsessed with making something new. The mix is not bad as a result, but if he had made a 13 episodes series with more in-depth storyline it would have had a much bigger effect, that is the reason I personally think the series was not a success.

Character [8] /10

As I described above, the only characters that needed attention were Zorndyke, the red-eyes mermaid and Hayani, with the exception of the giant experimental wale who saves them. I was really moved by the first scenes when the two (Hayani and the mermaid) met, where he saves her by bringing her back to the water. The use of lights and music was excellent, and I thought that it could have been the beginning of an evolution in terms of profundity of the characters. Unfortunately a was wrong, as the moments of poetical description of the protagonist's psychology and sentiments are very sporadic.

The mermaid looks strangely familiar... someone said Chobits? I'm sorry I did not hear you.

Value [7] /10

I find some problems in valuing the re-view ability of this anime. At first I would say that it's a straight 3 and let me explain the reason. As I mentioned before, there ARE interesting aspects, but they are not portrayed exhaustively in the series. Therefore you get that bad feeling that you're missing something, and you need to compensate the emptiness derived from the missing story with something else meaningful. That, on the other hand, could be considered a good point, as it will give you the will to, for example, write a review, or a story. Balancing it becomes a 7.

Enjoyment [8] /10

I have to admit that I somehow enjoyed the series even though its bad points that I previously mentioned. To be completely honest, I have this feeling of emptiness that needs to be filled with something that the anime did not achieve in giving me. There were too many good points to analyse, but I would say that it was worth watching in the end.

Federico Pistono Sept 25, 2005. http://www.federicopistono.org