Awards and festivals

Film description

After his father dies in the tsunami, Musashi and his mother move to a new house. The new place and the new school provide the boy with a constant string of challenges, but, quite unexpectedly, a mysterious, pink creature appears in his backpack. Apparently, there are very strange things happening in the city (possibly connected with a group of weird scientists in long, wide coats), but with the new friend at his side, Musashi is ready to face any adversities.

The candy-sweet monsters and the manga convention often appear in the works of Takashi Murakami, one of the most important, most popular contemporary Japanese artists, who managed to introduce the colorful, pop cultural aesthetics into the realm of modern art. In his feature debut, the "Japanese Warhol" uses the convention of a children's film. Associations with "Pokémons" and Steven Spielberg's "E.T." are perfectly justified, but this time the lovely creatures helped Murakami to talk about a difficult subject – how the youngest generation of the Japanese deals with the traumatic experience of Fukushima.

National traumas and pop-culture cannot do without references to "Godzilla." And at least one huge explosion. With his usual nonchalance, the director crosses the borders between adorable family cinema and a surreal, surprising narration, between a mass product and an artistic video shown in galleries. The film's worldwide promotion featured Pharell Williams and the teenager's virtual idol, singer Hatsune Miko, but the film was also screened at the prestigious Art Basel art show and at museum exhibitions. It completely baffled the critics, who were unable to assign the film to any of the schematic categories.

Jagoda Murczyńska