Normally, I’m pretty lukewarm on what I like to call “anime nonsense.” Yet, normally I try to see the anime feature as Fantasia International Film Festival. If nothing else, they are a staple here, and you usually get one or two of the latest features out of Japan. I’m of the opinion that variety is a crucial part of any festival experience, and so I’ll usually take a few films from a subjectively ‘meh’ genre.
Gun to my head, I couldn’t give you the roughest overview of Kenji Nakamura’s Mononoke sequel, Phantom in the Rain. There’s something about a brothel/pleasure house named Ooku, a medicine seller who specializes in exorcisms, and a friendship between two pseudo-chambermaids named Asa (Tomoyo Kurosawa) and Kame (Aoi Yuki). Someone more versed in this world can probably provide a better explanation than I.
Frankly, I don’t really care. In some ways, the film’s nonsensical structure facilitates a purer response. I’m not convinced you’re supposed to have a grand understanding of the film. I’m fairly convinced you’re simply supposed to enjoy the ride.
The lack of knowledge helps in ensuring that I got to experience what is easily the best part of Phantom in the Rain: wild editing styles. Nakamura utilizes an immensely cutting-edge style of editing. The best comparables I can come up with are the works of Satoshi Kon and the Wachowski’s Speed Racer, texts which utilize multiple lines of cross-cutting and jarring jump cuts. The editing best conveys a sense of action that helps the film forward its momentum, but maybe not its plot. Phantom in the Rain might also be one of the prettiest films I’ve seen in quite some time. The film’s hallucinatory use of Edo pop art styles is quite a treat. It’s nonsense, but it’s gorgeous nonsense.
- Release Date: 7/21/2024
- Directed by: Kenji Nakamura
