Mind Game

Mind Game is strange. It's beautiful. It's grotesque. It's full of hope. It's ugly. It's confounding. It's absurd. It's lovely. It's dirty and violent. It's pure and honest. It's nonsensical. It makes perfect sense. It's uncomfortable. It's comforting. It's real and unreal. It's a celebration of life and its infinite potential. It's unpredictable and odd but so very right. And it's as profound as anything.

It is a collage of different visual styles, of shifting, exaggerated, crude artwork, of photographs and rotoscoping and CGI. It is a cacophony of jazzy, groovy, electrifying music. It is surreal and metaphorical, but it is more truthful than most films could ever hope to be. It is so rich with detail that multiple viewings will be required just to see all there is to take in. It is everything that matters about our existence. It is the embodiment of the seemingly impossible struggle to truly live, to make the difficult choices, to take the chances you have to take to become what you should be. It is a call to fight, to grasp, to push with everything that you have, to never give up, no matter what.

It's author Robin Nishi's dissertation on life and director Masaki Yuasa's introduction as a major filmmaker. It is another home run for Studio 4°C, who have taken many years to earn the respect they so rightly deserve.

It is Mind Game, and it is magnificent.

Score: 10/10 (Masterpiece)