Review of City Paradise

So there I was, enjoying this weird and weirdly detailed movie with weird animation and a weird mix of styles (including real faces photographed for the expressions), and the credits start rolling when I think, "Wait a minute, is this music Joanna Newsom?" Not long afterwards, I discovered, "It is, it is Joanna Newsom!" Well, music isn't what makes a movie, even a short animation like this one, but anyone who knows who Joanna Newsom is (and many should considering the critical acclaim her album "Ys" received last year) will immediately understand the mood and tone of this short, which is about a Japanese in New York trying to learn and adapt to a new environment.

It's not the story that's the point, or the relative clarity in the moments (in Newsom's work, the lyrics, in this movie, moments like when the heroine tries to learn music), it's the saturated tone of it all. "City Paradise" is more than an animation, it's a fever dream. It's at times mythical, poignant, and yet disturbingly absurd.

Not that it needs Newsom's music to make it so. The animation alone is like suffering a bad acid trip. But when things like this come together so well and involve so many different styles and talents, it stands out as a beacon for deranged creativity, the chance that one person's unique taste will find other muses to create new expression.

--PolarisDiB