Just over three hours ago, I turned on the television at the exact moment Desu Nôto began. Billed as a Japanese horror, I assumed fate to be on my side, offering me an appropriate experience to satiate my cinematic needs.
A law student increasingly dismayed by the failings of the legal system which he aspires to, Light happens upon a notebook which allows the bearer to inflict death upon any person whom he knows by both name and face. Using this new power to punish criminals, Light becomes a mythical figure who divides public opinion, inviting a multicultural manhunt.
What I currently compose is my first review in over a month, a period of silence necessitated by an increased dedication to college work. I break this, however, for so deeply affected am I by Desu Nôto that I feel compelled to write about it rather than sleep, as a sensible being existing in this time zone at the present moment surely would. Reader, it is ghastly. I employ not one ounce of hyperbolic histrionics when I tell you that it is easily counted amidst the ten worst films I have ever had the indignity of enduring. Where to begin... Firstly: it is profoundly poorly written. Many are the times I have turned to foreign cinemas to provide an escape from the aggravatingly clunky expository dialogue of which Hollywood is so avid a proponent; many are the times in which Japan has been successful in assuaging the anger engendered by the aforementioned. This, however, was not one of them. The dialogue of Desu Nôto appears to consist entirely of plot exposition, every word which escapes a character's mouth informing the audience of something they should, if blessed with more than a single brain cell, already be very well aware of. Whenever it seems convenient to do so, the film will cut to a screen demonstrating another rule of the notebook—increasingly bizarre and convoluted as they are—in some of the most shamefully lazy and ill-planned screen writing I have ever been forced to view from behind a shield of fingers-clasped-over-eyes-in-disgust. Secondly: the direction is head-splittingly, brain-meltingly, faith-in-humanity-and-the-future-of-cinema-dwindlingly rubbish. Gruellingly speedy camera movements demonstrate, among many many other flaws, that the dolly zoom is beyond the abilities of the director, many of his shots a laughable attempt thereat. He is content, however, to switch from angle to angle to angle in an utterly pointless and melodramatic fashion that does nothing more than further demonstrate the infantile nonsensicality of his film. Though it is often quite difficult to tell with a film in a language which you do not speak, I am reasonably confident that the film is poorly acted on top of its tactless direction and imbecilic writing. All of these flaws and more are readily apparent in the first ten minutes, after which I turned and urged myself to retain at least a minute shred of faith in a good film to be found somewhere. Not so, for shortly thereafter comes the staggeringly atrocious main element of the films soi-disant "special effects", the Death God, a creature rendered in what appears to be the style of a Final Fantasy game from no less than a decade ago. It is phenomenal that anyone should be expected not to laugh aloud mirthfully the moment this character appears; I most certainly did—not the only occasion on which the film provoked riotous laughter. His appearance was the moment at which all faith in the film flew out the window, never to return, and it happened fifteen minutes in. Fifteen. I had to endure—according to my self-imposed refusal to cease watching a film I've begun until after the credits roll (how I regret that now)—a further 110 minutes, each of which felt like an eternity in the company of these mono-dimensional, entirely amoral, completely unsympathetic, thinly sketched, and senselessly motivated characters, trapped as they are within the absurd and uninteresting narrative which makes not a single attempt to justify its own ignominious existence. It is junk. It is garbage. It is the kind of film that should be forever banned from being viewed by anyone, so utterly hideous is it; so wholly offensive is the extent of its awfulness. Cinema is a passion I pursue almost vehemently, and films which do so much to discredit the artistic merit of the medium with their maliciously deleterious maladroit claptrap encourage such a venomous fury within me that I feel ready to burst. Do forgive me, on that note, but do understand that this tosh is nothing shy of pure unadulterated evil, which simply must not be tolerated. And as if it all wasn't enough to drive me to the brink of mental despair, it's only half the battle: Desu Nôto is merely part one of a two part saga. Help.
Crap from the start, and crap to the end, Desu Nôto is so incommunicably despicable, deplorable, detestable, and disgusting that it has warranted my sacrificing of an hour of well-needed rest in favour of communicating to you, dear reader, just how much you should do to avoid it. For my sake and for yours, and for that of the future of our species, please please stay as far away as you can from this offal.
A law student increasingly dismayed by the failings of the legal system which he aspires to, Light happens upon a notebook which allows the bearer to inflict death upon any person whom he knows by both name and face. Using this new power to punish criminals, Light becomes a mythical figure who divides public opinion, inviting a multicultural manhunt.
What I currently compose is my first review in over a month, a period of silence necessitated by an increased dedication to college work. I break this, however, for so deeply affected am I by Desu Nôto that I feel compelled to write about it rather than sleep, as a sensible being existing in this time zone at the present moment surely would. Reader, it is ghastly. I employ not one ounce of hyperbolic histrionics when I tell you that it is easily counted amidst the ten worst films I have ever had the indignity of enduring. Where to begin... Firstly: it is profoundly poorly written. Many are the times I have turned to foreign cinemas to provide an escape from the aggravatingly clunky expository dialogue of which Hollywood is so avid a proponent; many are the times in which Japan has been successful in assuaging the anger engendered by the aforementioned. This, however, was not one of them. The dialogue of Desu Nôto appears to consist entirely of plot exposition, every word which escapes a character's mouth informing the audience of something they should, if blessed with more than a single brain cell, already be very well aware of. Whenever it seems convenient to do so, the film will cut to a screen demonstrating another rule of the notebook—increasingly bizarre and convoluted as they are—in some of the most shamefully lazy and ill-planned screen writing I have ever been forced to view from behind a shield of fingers-clasped-over-eyes-in-disgust. Secondly: the direction is head-splittingly, brain-meltingly, faith-in-humanity-and-the-future-of-cinema-dwindlingly rubbish. Gruellingly speedy camera movements demonstrate, among many many other flaws, that the dolly zoom is beyond the abilities of the director, many of his shots a laughable attempt thereat. He is content, however, to switch from angle to angle to angle in an utterly pointless and melodramatic fashion that does nothing more than further demonstrate the infantile nonsensicality of his film. Though it is often quite difficult to tell with a film in a language which you do not speak, I am reasonably confident that the film is poorly acted on top of its tactless direction and imbecilic writing. All of these flaws and more are readily apparent in the first ten minutes, after which I turned and urged myself to retain at least a minute shred of faith in a good film to be found somewhere. Not so, for shortly thereafter comes the staggeringly atrocious main element of the films soi-disant "special effects", the Death God, a creature rendered in what appears to be the style of a Final Fantasy game from no less than a decade ago. It is phenomenal that anyone should be expected not to laugh aloud mirthfully the moment this character appears; I most certainly did—not the only occasion on which the film provoked riotous laughter. His appearance was the moment at which all faith in the film flew out the window, never to return, and it happened fifteen minutes in. Fifteen. I had to endure—according to my self-imposed refusal to cease watching a film I've begun until after the credits roll (how I regret that now)—a further 110 minutes, each of which felt like an eternity in the company of these mono-dimensional, entirely amoral, completely unsympathetic, thinly sketched, and senselessly motivated characters, trapped as they are within the absurd and uninteresting narrative which makes not a single attempt to justify its own ignominious existence. It is junk. It is garbage. It is the kind of film that should be forever banned from being viewed by anyone, so utterly hideous is it; so wholly offensive is the extent of its awfulness. Cinema is a passion I pursue almost vehemently, and films which do so much to discredit the artistic merit of the medium with their maliciously deleterious maladroit claptrap encourage such a venomous fury within me that I feel ready to burst. Do forgive me, on that note, but do understand that this tosh is nothing shy of pure unadulterated evil, which simply must not be tolerated. And as if it all wasn't enough to drive me to the brink of mental despair, it's only half the battle: Desu Nôto is merely part one of a two part saga. Help.
Crap from the start, and crap to the end, Desu Nôto is so incommunicably despicable, deplorable, detestable, and disgusting that it has warranted my sacrificing of an hour of well-needed rest in favour of communicating to you, dear reader, just how much you should do to avoid it. For my sake and for yours, and for that of the future of our species, please please stay as far away as you can from this offal.