Last week we were delighted to receive an invitation to the premiere of the animated Rock Opera Inu-O on the East Coast, which opens in theaters today. It is distributed by GKids, a company that has long advocated non-Hollywood animation for an American audience that, as we all know, can be stubbornly short-sighted towards animation, considering it as a genre rather than a way to create all kinds of genres and visual effects. The show took place in the Japanese society here in Manhattan. I mention it mainly because I’ve never been there one way or the other, and I should highly recommend this place, which also hosts monthly screenings of famous Japanese anime movies and live-action movies (recent movies included everything from Princess Mononoke Miyazaki to the movie Kaiju Motra., Kagemusha by Akira Kurosawa). Watching specialized films, which are usually presented to small groups of authors of works of art, in a beautiful and respectful context with a large crowd, is always exciting (one of the reasons why film festivals never lose their enthusiasm).

The animated Rock Opera was written by the famous director Masaaki Yuasa (about whom we have already talked in the films “Ride on Your Wave”, “Lou through The Wall” and “The Night is short”, “Walk on The girl”). The story, complex and sometimes difficult to understand, begins with a strange prologue that tells the story of a family of divers faced with a terrible supernatural fate during the recovery of treasures from the bottom of the ocean, a executed father and a blinded son. Years after, the blind son, now a young man, lives the modest life of a musician specializing in the biwa (wooden lute).

While Inu-O is never boring due to his inventive and disorienting visuals, Yuasa often leads us to film from different angles, where our vision is blurred or distorted to reflect the characters and situations.the film takes the time to capture its narrative tracks. After a kind of experience between a blind and hideous stranger wearing a pumpkin mask (our protagonist), we really took off. Inu-o likes to hurt frightened villagers. But the blind young man from Thomon is not afraid of him, because he does not see his strange and disturbing physique. Once these two young men, both musically gifted, both cursed by evil spirits (blindness and ugliness), unite, the film begins to take shape.

This is not a fixed way to be sure. The most exciting thing about the film is the way it develops and develops. Young people choose new names and continue to play with their identity. Inu-O changes shape right in front of you literally! Their frenetic performances and stage appearance, contrasting with the formal fourteenth-century world around them, are very reminiscent of the twentieth century and come from many musical traditions such as Glam Rock, punk and Heavy metal. The more famous they become, the wilder the movie gets. A calmer color palette makes the most awesome saturated colors really vivid when they appear on the screen.

Will Inu-O be able to further strengthen Yuasa’s international authority as an anime author? It’s hard to say. Although he never lacks creativity, the plot moments (and there are many of them) and the narrative rhythms are sometimes difficult to understand, because they are more than enough to take you between the visual wonders and the loud music.With its narrative lyrics. However, the rise of this Punk Duo, while the film discards most of the other plot problems towards a series of increasingly lively Rock concerts, is sensational. Not to be missed, really.