Of Light and Darkness - The motion picture explorations of Daniel & Clara

This November marks the 10th anniversary of creative collaboration between Daniel & Clara, and the part of their celebration is a brand new essay written by yours truly, and released on their official webpage just a couple of days ago. Titled Of Light and Darkness - The motion picture explorations of Daniel & Clara, the article covers their playful feature debut Savage Witches, alchemical experiments of 2016 and 2017 such as In Search of the Exile and The Kingdom of Darkness, the extensive Studio Diary series, and the 'landscape period' including their latest offering - a dreamy, ethereally beautiful short, En Plain Air, which recently premiered at the online edition of Slow Film Festival.

Of Light and Darkness can be read HERE.

Still shot from In Search of the Exile (2016)

Cinematic Favorites 10/20

Thanks to the overwhelming response to an open call for the second edition of the Kinoskop festival I've been co-curating, and partly to my cine-appetite, I watched over three hundred shorts during this October, ranging from an occultish, rambunctiously psychedelic phantasmagoria to a surrealistic, absurdly funny rom-com to a good number of archival footage films that must be originating from the Twilight Zone. However, for this edition of Cinematic Favorites, I will focus solely on feature-length offerings, both oldies and newbies, which made my moody autumnal days.

IN A TIME-MACHINE

1. Faust (F.W. Murnau, 1926) - Nothing short of pure magic!
2. Osessione (Luchino Visconti, 1943) - Although I'm rarely attracted to the films of Italian neorealism, I was deeply impressed by Visconti's debut, right from the foreboding theme in the opening credits, and all the way to technical, formal and metaphorical subtleties at display. A wonderful piece of classic cinema!
3. Fire with Fire (Duncan Gibbins, 1986) - From an elaborate proto-selfie inspired by Sir John Everett Millais's painting Ophelia, and taken by Virginia Madsen's heroine Lisa (epitomizing other-worldly beauty!) to the action-packed finale which features hints of First Blood (believe it or not!), forbidden-love drama Fire with Fire is a charming, engaging and highly entertaining  re-imagination of Romeo and Juliet that left me – one of the 80s children – utterly enchanted. I can't remember the last time I wanted to cheer aloud for the protagonists to have a happy ending, partly due to the sparkling chemistry between Ms. Madsen and her partner Craig Sheffer who look adorable together, channeling extremely subtle eroticism and being pretty believable as late teens (both of them were in their mid-20s back then). Also praiseworthy is Jon Polito's performance – he excels in chewing the scenery, creating one of those sleazy cop characters that you just love to hate!

4. Bullet Ballet (Shin'ya Tsukamoto, 1998) - An exemplary piece of unadulterated cine-madness, Bullet Ballet plunges the viewer, along with its self-destructive protagonist, into the boiling vortex of violence, assaulting your senses with dizzying camerawork, hectic editing and energizing score, while coming across as a drugged out version of Taxi Driver. The all-pervading nihilist attitude is greatly complemented by highly expressive black & white cinematography, yet no stills could do it justice – the film should be seen in its frenetic motion.
5. Jubilee (Derek Jarman, 1978) - Chewing scenery can be a major distraction in some movies, but not in Derek Jarman's sophomore feature in which overacting should be embraced as an integral part of its glamorously raw style (Jack Birkett as Borgia Ginz is a blast!). Densely packed with colorful, unruly imagery and loud punk-rock songs, Jubilee is a queer, irreverent, anarchistic and confrontational fantasy that could easily provoke an outrage within certain circles even today. 
6. The Savior (Michel Mardore, 1971) - Part teen-girl sexual fantasy and part reflection on horrors of war, Michel Mardore's feature debut chronicles a twisted love story between sweet and naïf Nanette and a wounded partisan, Claude, portrayed, respectively, by 19-yo first-timer Muriel Catalá and thirtysomething Horst Buchholz, both completely uninhibited in their roles. Nicely paced, slightly exploitative and aesthetically pleasing, the film takes a sharp turn when the 1943 reality kicks in, turning wet dream into a nightmarish tragedy.
7. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Jacques Demy, 1964) - The phrase 'bursting with colors' appears like a severe understatement when it comes to Demy's lauded musical. And Catherine Deneuve looks like an angel, whether her costume is peach or sky blue, beige or magenta...

THE 21st CENURY CINEMA

1. (ex aquo)

Black Sun (Daniel & Clara, 2017)
Commissioned to write an essay on the occassion of celebrating Daniel & Clara's decade-long career, I had the honor of seeing their boldest, most secretive and challenging piece, Black Sun, and you will be able to read about it tomorrow, on November 2, when the article is scheduled for release...

Desire Path (Marjorie Conrad, 2020)
Fear and desire become opaque and obscure One in Marjorie Conrad's uncompromising sophomore feature – a deliberately paced, relentlessly elliptical and formally adventurous de(con)struction of the vampire subgenre. Almost completely wordless and featuring a minimal cast of three (Amy Deanna, Otto von Schirach and Andrew Banewicz, more ciphers than characters), this cryptic experimental horror plays out like a densely atmospheric tone poem which will certainly provoke extremely polarizing reactions. So, I am speaking for myself when I say that its peculiar blend of heavily brooding drones and oppressively tenebrous visuals slowly but assuredly creeps its way under the viewer's skin and stays there for who knows how long. What I particularly like about it are unforeseen changes in image format, fetishist approach to both soft focus and flickering, as well as the frequent 'leaps into the void' (i.e. black screen intrusions) that intensify its mysteriousness and turn the experience of watching it into an eerie encounter with some alien / demonic entity.
2. Spontaneous (Brian Duffield, 2020) - ... is not 'high art'. But, in all honesty, I don't give a damn, because it is the most entertaining coming-of-age story I've seen in years, and it works like a cinematic antidote for the vitriolic, f*cked-up reality of 2020, without being too escapist! An emotional roller-coaster that's exciting from the first to the last minute, it is a seamless blend of teen romance, dark comedy and contemporary fantasy which has an absurd mystery (of senior high-schoolers spontaneously exploding) at its core. Featuring adorable leading duo and brimming with youthful energy and film-related jokes and references (which appear to be Duffield's fetish of sorts, judging by his previous screenplays), it firmly embraces (pop-)punkish attitude and successfully treads the line between bitter and sweet, subtle and crude, tender and edgy, trivial and profound, life-affirming and death-embracing. Quite a calling for its first-time director!
3. Paul Keller: Silence in the Scream (Axel Loh, 2020) - Shot on a 16mm camera from the 60s and enhanced with bits of post-war found footage, Paul Keller has the looks, but also the heart of a retro B-movie. Part love letter to Hitchcock's Psycho, and part twisted mystery seasoned with subtly tongue-in-cheek humor, it boasts an admirable performance from its lead actor, Fabian Dünow, and enchants with its beautifully composed frames.

4. The Bra (Veit Helmer, 2018) - read my review HERE.
5. Lily Lane (Benedek Fliegauf, 2016) - read my review HERE.
6. Love and Monsters (Michael Matthews, 2020) - Another surprisingly engaging movie penned by Brian Duffield, Love and Monsters is a romantic, larger-than-life adventure set in the post-apocalyptic USA infested with mutated (and not to mention enormous!) insects, crustaceans and amphibians conjured through Harryhausen-inspired CGI. 
7. Koko-di Koko-da (Johannes Nyholm, 2020) - the less you know about the loopy hell of this Scandinavian genre-bender, the better...

Lily Lane (Benedek Fliegauf, 2016)

☼☼☼☼☼☼☼(☼) out of 10☼

Lily Lane (originally, Liliom ösvény) is a peculiar beast, one with a coarse fur coat, and wounded heart beating underneath. Once again, Benedek Fliegauf - famous for the harrowing 2012 drama Just the Wind - opts for a sensitive subject matter and handles it in a rather unconventional fashion. The film focuses on a young mother, Rebeka (the oddly captivating performance by Angéla Stefanovics), who brings a heavy emotional load into the relationship with both her son, Dani (the impressive debut for Bálint Sótonyi), and her soon-to-be ex husband whom she keeps at a safe distance and whom we never see. Through a bizarre fairy tale that she puts Dani to sleep with, we learn a good deal about the ghosts from her past, especially after her mother loses the battle against cancer, which leads to the awkward meeting with her estranged father...

A melancholic, de-sentimentalized rumination on parental neglect, love(lessness) and loss, whether due to separation or death, Fliegauf's latest offering tells the story from two different, yet equally distorted and tightly knit perspectives - those of Rebeka's troubled mind and of a seven-year old child who absorbs every word with wide-eyed curiosity. Each of the leading duo's broken realities is reflected in raw, eerie and subtly intrusive home movie-like sequences, the first of which acts as an opening and sets the gloomy tone for what is to follow. Unapologetically somber and unadorned, occasionally captured in phantasmal, borderline found footage horror B&W, these 'video memories' are not gimmicks, but rather bold experiments in the depiction of unresolved issues and innermost worlds. In stark contrast, Rebeka and Dani's everyday - devoid of its prosaic aspects whenever possible - is lensed in natural light and infused with poetic beauty, the pool scene being one of the film's visual highlights. Directed at a measured pace, Lily Lane or rather, its heroine suddenly 'explodes' in a purifying, cathartic tantrum during the finale, only to be covered by the veil of silent uncertainty...

The Bra (Veit Helmer, 2018)

 ☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼(☼) out of 10☼

In one of the oddest, if not the boldest deconstructions of the Cinderella story, the heroine doesn't lose her glass slipper, but a rather intimate part of her wardrobe. When the train passes through a run-down area of Baku, dangerously close to dilapidated houses surrounding the railway, her turquoise bra gets stuck to the locomotive front. An aged engine driver - compassionately portrayed by Serbian veteran actor Predrag Manojlović - embarks on an adventurous journey to find his 'princess', hoping she may put an end to his lonely existence and thus fill his retirement days with joy.

Given that the protagonist employs the same 'try on' system as the one from the original fairy tale, there are plenty of situations that produce a humorous effect, whether the visited ladies are spinsters or widows, single moms or the wives of burly (and not to mention jealous) men. And the poor guy's determination is so strong that he is willing to go to any length in order to achieve his goal, which also livens up the comedy. On top of that, Helmer's frequent collaborator Denis Lavant provides an extra dose of delightful comic relief moments, in a brilliant supporting role as an apprentice prone to buffoonery.

The quirkiness is amped up to eleven and the world of The Bra often appears as borderline fantastical, not only because the characters don't speak, or because a servant boy resides in a doghouse. Simply put, there's some kind of magic in the childlike playfulness of both direction and performances, as well as in the grainy texture of 35mm cinematography, especially during the scenes which capture bucolic beauty. (The image of Sayora Safarova as a sweet village girl holding a brown lamb amidst a vast meadow gets easily and deeply imprinted in the viewer's mind!) Bursting with colors, the film's pleasant, refreshingly retro and meticulously composed visuals are effectively complemented by a mellifluous, highly evocative score, diegetic sounds and non-verbal vocalizations, so the absence of dialogue - one of Helmer's trademarks - once again proves to be a welcome choice. The Bra is best described as an affectionately written love letter to silent cinema, and as such, it possesses a timeless quality, as well as a potential to become the future cult favorite.

Cinematic Favorites 09/20

Encompassing 30 films, feature-length and short, recent and old (but watched for the first time this September), the 9th listicle of 2020 opens with John Carpenter's genre-bending and genre-defining masterwork Assault on Precinct 13, and ends with a small piece of traditionally animated magic El Mago Georges, with in-betweeners ranging from a delicate modern fairy tale to highly experimental tone poems.

IN A TIME-MACHINE

1. Assault on Precinct 13 (John Carpenter, 1976)
2. Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages (Benjamin Christensen, 1922)
3. The Big Night (Mauro Bolognini, 1959) - Bursting with fancy-free life of moral decadence and smoothly roaming across Rome under the energetic direction, this Pasolini-written crime-drama seduces the viewer with its propulsive jazz score, wonderful B&W cinematography and incredibly handsome cast. It is also absolutely magical in its simplicity!
4. Anaphase (Levi Zini, 1996)
5. When the Tenth Month Comes (Dang Nhat Minh, 1984) - Talented and adorable actress Lê Vân stars as a young widow, Duyên, in Dang Nhat Minh's 1984 drama When the Tenth Month Comes (originally, Bao gio cho den tháng Muoi) that wonderfully poeticizes a countryside life (and pushes it extremely close to the realm of the supernatural on a couple of occasions!) during the last days of the Vietnam War. Ms Vân's delicate performance alone is the reason enough to spend 80 minutes with this (handsomely lensed) feature.
6. Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick, 1975)
7. Finis Terrae (Jean Epstein, 1929)
8. The Secret of the Black Trunk (Werner Klingler, 1962) - Knife murders, experimental drugs, secret identities, underground labyrinths... This pulpy 'krimi' thriller has everything, even a 'sound-hound' comic-relief character! Not lacking in suspicious mugs, its twisty story is directed with a keen sense of pacing and wit, captured in beautifully noirish B&W images and accompanied by an enticingly cacophonous score.
9. The Mansion of Madness (Juan López Moctezuma, 1973) - There's a certain method to Moctezuma's creative madness that pervades his debut feature – a fairly loose adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's short story The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether. Jodorowskian in (panic movement) spirit and Felliniesque in baroque excesses, with Rafael Corkidi beautifully lensing the increasingly frantic action, The Mansion of Madness is a bizarre dark comedy which has an irreverent satire of a totalitarian regime buried under the layers of riotous eccentricities. Filmed at the attractively dilapidated locations (of an abandoned factory?), it is highly recommended for the 'ruin porn' aficionados.
10. World Gone Wild (Lee H. Katzin, 1987) - "Nothing makes sense in a world gone wild", and yet this insanely weird mélange of Seven Samurai, Mad Max and Streets of Fire works like a charm, with the story dictated by the rule of cool and logic lying in pieces after being thrown out of the window. Starring Catherine Mary Stewart as a sweetheart school(bus) teacher, Michael Paré as a hunky renegade hero, Bruce Dern as a desert hippie-shaman and Adam Ant as a charismatic villain who brainwashes a choir-boy-like army with the help of The Wit and Wisdom of Charles Manson, this post-apocalyptic action flick also features the gang of almost naked cannibals and a trigger-happy explosive expert (Julius Carry) who wears a violet leotard and a mail coif. Cheesy fun and bizarre costumes abound!

THE 21st CENTURY CINEMA

1. Angel (Harry Cleven, 2016) - Highly poetic, daringly gentle, hopelessly romantic, heartachingly beautiful and incredibly sensorial, Angel (originally Mon ange) is a modern fairy tale which succeeds where many features of our time fail – to revive the magic of classic cinema in an almost effortless manner. Its delicate, admirably sensual cinematography by young, yet extremely talented Juliette Van Dormael lends it an absorbing, dreamlike atmosphere complemented by caressing string score and whispery, low key performances by minimal cast including Elina Löwensohn (reliable as ever) and Fleur Geffrier (absolutely enchanting). Both actresses are faced with the challenge of performing next to an 'invisible' partner who represents the former's son and the latter's lover (voiced by excellent Gauthier Battoue in adulthood), whereby director Harry Cleven is up to the task of showing us this character who cannot be seen. In achieving what seems impossible, he makes brilliant use of close-ups, soft focuses and gauzed lenses, intensifying the pervading and already strong feeling of intimacy...
2. Its Existence Commenced This Hour (Wolfgang Lehmann, 2019) - Behind the liquid curtain of multicolored abstractions, the nature sinks into a trembling dream and becomes one with it. Strengthened by haunting, borderline alien soundscapes, their unity rips the fabric of reality... I only wish it were possible to touch the incessantly mutating images.
3. Luz: The Flower of Evil (Juan Diego Escobar Alzate, 2019) - The ever-growing madness of religious zealotry and the incredibly lush verdancy of Eden-like mountain setting contrast and complement each other in one of the most visually stunning feature debuts of recent years. Boasting temperamental performances, especially from Conrado Osorio who portrays a false prophet addressed only as El Señor, and brilliant color-grading which makes virtually every shot worth framing and hanging on your wall (many kudos to another firsttimer, Felipe Martinez), Luz feels as if The VVitch were retouched by Jodorowsky in his prime, and impregnated with Bergmanesque questioning of faith...
4. Kasper Bjørke Quartet: The Fifty Eleven Project Full Visual Album (Justin Tyler Close, 2018) - Danish musician Kasper Bjørke's five-year-long struggle with cancer is tenderly reflected in a meditative anthology of music videos turned experimental tour de force imbued with striking imagery of dreamlike quality. Various influences, ranging from Terrence Malick to Pina Bausch to Butō dance, are seamlessly blended in a haunting, highly interpretive film marked by an exemplary wordless performance from Kristján Ingimarsson. Also praiseworthy is dancer Bobbi Jene Smith in an uninhibited role of Mother Nature.
5. Human Lost (Fuminori Kizaki, 2019) 
6. Hoffmaniada (Stanislav Sokolov, 2018)
7. Birthday Wonderland (Keiichi Hara, 2019) - In the latest offering from Keiichi Hara (of Colorful and Miss Hokusai fame), Alice in Wonderland is re-imagined for the umpteenth time, with a mustached alchemist by the name of Hippocrates (sic!) as a stand-in for the White Rabbit. Not the first, and most probably not the last anime about a girl who gets 'spirited away' to another world in order to become a better person, Birthday Wonderland pulls the viewer in by virtue of lavish animation and great attention to detail, but comes off as a bit generic in terms of story and characters. Although its magic gradually wears off during the second hour, there's still a lot to enjoy here...
8. Dogs Don't Wear Pants (J.-P. Valkeapää, 2019)
9. Acid (Aleksandr Gorchilin, 2018) - With a naked drugged out guy gone crazy and some foursome action featured in the first 15 minutes, Acid appears to be quite bold by Russian cinema standards. As Gorchilin's provocations grow increasingly milder, the film loses its steam meandering through 'rebelliously' aimless everyday of disenchanted bourgeois youth. And yet, by virtue of Kseniya Sereda's crisp widescreen cinematography and magnetic performances, it remains strangely captivating all throughout the end which begins with a funny dream (or trip?) sequence involving a toilet. Thinly-cut slices of empty lives are served along with a cup of cold and bitter tea, but it wouldn’t hurt to have a little jar of jam to dip your fingers in...
10. Metamorphosis (Hong-seon Kim, 2019)

SHORT FILMS, OLD & NEW

1. Eventide (Muriel Paraboni, 2016) - Stunningly beautiful widescreen compositions, haunting music and lyrical voice-overs interweave into a lush, delicate tapestry of lucid dreams, elusive emotions and lingering memories, as Muriel Paraboni dives into the subconscious of his characters, enveloping them in an aura of secrecy. In his exploration of their transfiguring innerscapes, he employs B&W to intense color transitions, as well as the surroundings – vast open spaces and minimalist interiors where shadows grow more intense. This way, he establishes an oneiric, meditative atmosphere which provides you with a peculiar mélange of melancholy and solace acting as an equivalent of a soul-healing potion. Decidedly abstract in its treatment of the physical world – nature, humans and artifacts of their creation – his Eventide is a ravishing tone poem, with moving images turned into its verses.
2. The Arrival (Justin Tyler Close, 2019) - Dedicated to installation and environmental artist, painter and sculptor Lita Albuquerque whose daughter, Jasmine, and first grandson, Adé, appear in the film, The Arrival is a moving, hyper-poetic reflection on grief, loss and rebirth. Shot around the ruins of Ms Albuquerque's home-studio lost in the Woolsey Fires in 2018, it marries a surreal, childlike performance to an experimental, post-apocalyptic fantasy, featuring an inviting 16mm cinematography by Jeremy Cox and evocative cello-score by Lo Fang.
3. Black Angel (Roger Christian, 1980)
4. On Floating Bodies (Sibi Sekar, 2020) - Soaked in dense, unforgiving shadows which at times seep in from the darkest recesses of Lynchian realm, On Floating Bodies is a mysterious, devastatingly beautiful tone poem of obscure images, evocative words and haunting music slowly waltzing into the great nothingness, equally frightening and comforting. An impressive calling card for 23-yo filmmaker Sibi Sekar.
5. Fountain of Dreams (Jordan Belson, 1984)
6. The Sower (Janja Rakuš, 2020) - Sowing seeds of a mysterious cosmic color that is all colors at once and no color at all, Janja Rakuš grows an abstract phantasmagoria of mesmerizing power. As the amorphous images of her short film 'bleed' and 'melt' before your eyes, they remain constant in their emanation of obscure light, evoking time in a standstill, and space outside of the physical one. If The Sower were a living entity, it would most probably act as a portal towards eternity...
7. Suspense (Phillips Smalley & Lois Weber, 1913) - A home invasion, a car chase and the brilliant triangular split-screen - all in an early, ten-minute thriller by the first American woman director Lois Weber who also plays the wife role.
8. My Brain is Screaming to Rest (Josh Parmer, 2020)
9. Saturn Returns (Dan Siegelman, 2018)
10. El Mago Georges (Kati Egely, 2020)

Birds of Turmoil (Through the Mirror)

 Burn this house of lies and its gilded secrets.
Burn the ground they walk on and let their children
Cry until all of their dreams drown in tears.

And don’t be sorry – the shadows don’t feel.
And don’t be holy – the first snow will bleed
And lead you into a new labyrinth
Where you’ll be as lost as you’ve ever been.

Raise the dead of your vivid memories,
Invoke the black clouds from your reveries,
And sing for the infernal rain never to stop falling.

(At midnight, we’ll turn into reflections of our pain.
In the morning, we will pass through the mirror.)

Human Lost (Fuminori Kizaki, 2019)

 ☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼ out of 10☼

Inner demons externalize as borderline-Lovecraftian monsters in Fuminori Kizaki's latest anime feature which turns its source material - namely, Osamu Dazai's highly acclaimed novel No Longer Human - on its head (as well as inside-out) - a pretty daring move from screenwriter Tow Ubukata (Le Chevalier D'Eon, Mardock Scramble, Ghost in the Shell: Arise). Filtered through the prism of adrenaline-pumping cyberpunk-action, original story is kept on a life support machine, as its rebellious spirit roams wild and free through Tokyo of the not-so-distant (and not-so-utopian) future.

The year is 2036 (Showa 111) and diseases are the thing of the past thanks to the breakthroughs in medical technology, i.e. the S.H.E.L.L. (Sound Health and Everlasting Long Life) system of nanomachines that allows even death to be reversed. However, the power lies in the hands of a selected few elders who rule the elite of 'Inside', whereas the city outskirts are inhabited by hoi polloi who are to be exploited in their longevity, being denied the full benefits of the abovementioned system. Those who try to disconnect forcefully from H.U.M.A.N. network transform into savage atrocities called 'Lost', and are 'processed' by the troopers of the H.I.L.A.M. (Human Intelligence, Laboratory, Mechanist) agency.

The ensuing economical disparity and the possibility of complete organic overhaul lead to the rise of revolutionary movements one of which instigates a kamikaze-like assault on Inside in a memorable bike-chase sequence inviting comparison to the cult favorite Akira. Recruited by a mysterious string-puller, Masao Horiki, and his best friend Takeichi, a depressed, drug-addicted artist, Yozo Oba, finds himself amidst the mess, only to have his super-special ability awaken... with a little help of S.H.E.L.L.'s 'applicant' Yoshiko Hiiragi. What follows is 'a battle between Yoshiko’s pure hearted idealism, Oba’s despair-fuelled cynicism, and Masao’s embittered nihilism' (as Hayley Scanlon words it for Windows on Worlds) painted as a larger-than-life and stronger-than-death sci-fi extravaganza.

Exploring or at least touching upon the themes of societal injustice, generational conflict, scientific progress with its upsides and downsides, alienation in the technologically advanced era, and knowing one's true self no matter how frightening it is, Kizaki anchors the narrative in a familiar, yet uncanny reality of nightmarish proportions. Although he favors style over substance, his film - moving at brisk pace - raises a number of questions impossible to be answered unambiguously, providing the viewer with just enough food for thought to keep him/her engaged in the bombastic proceedings. 

On frequent ventures into his protagonists' minds (or hearts!), he resorts to some good ol' 'tricks' which open doors towards innermost, void-like spaces of non-existent gravity - we've seen those 'locales' countless times before, yet they never seem to get worn-out! Equally surreal and physics-defying are over-the-top action set-pieces where Kizaki and his team of animators shine brightest, but this doesn't mean they have nothing to show during more reflective parts that allow us to take a breath. On the contrary, there are loads of eye-candy in both character and background design, including, inter alia, an abandoned temple (as the revolutionaries' hideout), sterile laboratories of S.H.E.L.L., neon-lit skyscrapers evoking vistas of Blade Runner, and impressive holograms inspired by traditional Japanese art and architecture. And let's not forget the psychedelic imaging of Losts' point of view, and delightfully morbid pieces of Yozo's artwork! Complementing the lavish cel-shaded visuals is a dramatic score featuring some pounding techno/rock tracks as excitement intensifiers.

If you're fond of the 80s and 90s dark cyberpunk anime (regardless of the cheesy factor), there's a fair chance that Human Lost will trigger some precious memories, notwithstanding its glossy, CG-heavy glaze, so don't miss it.