First Post- What the hell am I doing?

I'm particularly bored this afternoon. I've decided to start a blog. No idea what direction it'll take, but I'll start with a running log of things noteworthy and interesting. Self-centered nostalgia rather than public consumption is its goal.

So to start things off, an interesting anime gem I found the other night. Usually I stay away from anime, unless it's ridiculously surreal or absurd. Animation is at its strongest in the realms of the fantastic. Theorizing best saved for another post, on to the film..

Shôjo tsubaki (aka Midori) - 1992 - Hiroshi Harada
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0930902/

This headtrip is set in the late 19th Century follows the fate of a pretty young girl, Midori. Leaving behind the rewards of sidewalk flower peddling and the rat-eaten corpse of her mother, she falls in with a traveling freak show. Amid the abuse and insanity she eventually finds true twisted love.

There really isn't much more to say about the plot, it's all pretty simple and trite. What makes the film noteworthy is the lovely jarring split of innocence and perversion. The animation style is early, often the story is told with static images and very sparse movement. This old-school stylization lends a certain beauty and melancholy glaze to the film, like you're watching an anime you vaguely remember from childhood. Disturbing images abound and the deviant eroticism of "naughty" anime shows up on occasion.

One more interesting thing is the cinematic history of this film. The director didn't allow passive consumption of his film, instead he staged events around its showing. The film traveled around Japan, along with a real freak show, and was apparently a totally interactive experience. In one account I read that the audience was led into a candle-lit cellar where the film was played in complete darkness, freaks hiding in the shadow throwing various scene-relevant objects at the audience (flower pedals, sand, etc). Apparently these performance-centered exhibitions were the only way Harada allowed the film to be seen, and DVD rights were withheld for a very long time.