25.5.09

Monday Movie: Tokyo Godfathers


When three homeless people - a teenage runaway, a ruined gambler and a washed up drag queen - find a baby abandoned in the trash at Christmas, they decide to investigate themselves rather than contact the authorities. But their attempts to find the delinquent parents lead them from one unlikely encounter to another, and everything surrounding this strange child seems prone to small, often unnoticed miracles.

In Tokyo Godfathers, director Satoshi Kon takes his knack for weaving psychedelic surreality into everyday scenes and applies it to a layer of society that most of us prefer to overlook. The result is a film with a perfect, grimy urban ambience that still manages to convey a sense of magical Christmas spirit. It's also a film that, with very few direct references to Christianity, nevertheless embodies the real, non-mystical significance of the holiday: humanising those outside 'normal' culture and arguing for forgiveness, respect and understanding.

3 comments:

Geosomin said...

Huh...there was a trailer for this on the front of Appleseed: ExMachina and I was kind of intrigued. Now I'm convinced I need to track it down...

Pacian said...

I recommend it unreservedly.

On the other hand, I actually found Appleseed Ex Machina pretty disappointing. Especially compared to the first CG Appleseed, which was rather fun.

Michelle said...

Thanks yet again for adding another intriguing movie to my list of must sees!