I keep seeing this movie compared to anime or martial arts movies, and while I can see its roots in both genres, Crying Freeman is not really either. It might be a genre to itself.
Years ago I read a book named "The Painted Bird" that I thought deserved to be taught as a classic because its clean, spare style deserved study. But what really set it apart for me was that it was permeated with violence - it was about WWII and life under the brutal rule of Nazi invaders - but its treatment was so spare and clean it somehow rose above its subject matter into the mythic and poetic.
That's how this movie struck me. It is violent without being blood-soaked, has some highly charged eroticism without sinking into porn, and says more with the star's silence than could ever be told with dialog. The filming style is as spare and beautiful as I remember the text in "The Painted Bird" and can't be separated from the overall mythic impact of the movie.
I'm not saying this is a world-changing movie. It didn't give me some sort of epiphany, and at my age I'm no big fan of martial arts movies or anime cartoons. I'm just saying there is something quite beautiful about the way this movie fits together that elevates it above a subject matter that could have been cheapened into a spatter flick or bloated into a pure CG actioner. It's worth watching if only to sink your mind into the elusive, mythic quality that sets this movie apart.
Years ago I read a book named "The Painted Bird" that I thought deserved to be taught as a classic because its clean, spare style deserved study. But what really set it apart for me was that it was permeated with violence - it was about WWII and life under the brutal rule of Nazi invaders - but its treatment was so spare and clean it somehow rose above its subject matter into the mythic and poetic.
That's how this movie struck me. It is violent without being blood-soaked, has some highly charged eroticism without sinking into porn, and says more with the star's silence than could ever be told with dialog. The filming style is as spare and beautiful as I remember the text in "The Painted Bird" and can't be separated from the overall mythic impact of the movie.
I'm not saying this is a world-changing movie. It didn't give me some sort of epiphany, and at my age I'm no big fan of martial arts movies or anime cartoons. I'm just saying there is something quite beautiful about the way this movie fits together that elevates it above a subject matter that could have been cheapened into a spatter flick or bloated into a pure CG actioner. It's worth watching if only to sink your mind into the elusive, mythic quality that sets this movie apart.