Review of Hanagatami

What I believe people should know before they decide to watch this is that it is long, the pace is slow, the imagery sometimes very confusing and there's some nudity (both male and female). There's also not much of a story. It's basically about a group of youths struggling with their relationships in the wake of WW2 (and by that I mean that each character has a strangely charged relationship with literally everyone else). That being said, it is a beautiful movie to look at. Many scenes are made to look like they were taken from old movies with overly saturated colours. Everyone acts as if in a daze which gives the whole movie a very dream-like atmosphere. In contrast to that you have the horrors of the looming war which feel completey out of place and all the more horrible.

I'm honestly not sure if I liked it or not. The length and pace made it a very hard watch for me, but in retrospect I do appreciate what it tried to achieve.