Ranked #2799

A Tree of Palme

I didn’t know about Tree of Palme until it was licensed by ADV. Many of the advertisements gave me the impression that Tree of Palme would be a serious and mature title, despite the childish looking character designs. After watching I was right for the most part, its just I could barely keep awake when watching.

The first thing I noticed and probably most people, was the animation. It is undeniable beautiful and very smooth. Backgrounds in particular were well done and quite nice to look at. I guess since this is a movie the animation is expected to be amazing. The character designs are reminiscent of Fantastic Children, being fairly simple and childlike. Personally I’m not really a fan of this kind of design but I guess it works. Sadly, the animation and art was the only thing going for this movie.

Tree of Palme has a Pinocchio like story, where a doll goes on an adventure and tires to be more human. However, the story was told in such a confusing manner I needed to talk to my friends to figure out what was going on. Admittedly, when I watched this I was a bit tired however, I doubt it would had made a difference. This was due to the extremely drawn out manner in which they told the story and the fact that the director seemed so obsessed with making the movie pretty. Perhaps the reason I was confused was because I didn’t like/care about the characters.

In general the characters were quite boring and I couldn’t seem to care about Palme. Even worst the characters were extremely inconsistent, acting completely different a split second later. The motivation behind these changes in character was weak...wait was there any motivations behind these changes? I can’t seem to remember anymore.

Perhaps that last line sums up the movie for me. In the end The Tree of Palme was a completely forgettable movie. The story was told in an extremely confusing manner and even worst it was boring. Characters were bland, superficial and inconsistent and the only reason I remember the main characters name is because its in the title of the movie. I would like to talk more as this is easily one of the shortest reviews I’ve written but I can’t seem to remember anything else. Also, the only reason why I didn’t give Tree of Palme a 1/10 was due to the high quality animation. read more

Story is not easy but it is deep and good.
Animations are lovely.
Sound is ok.

Not everyone will understand this movie and will say " i dont like it"

I really like this film very much.

This has got to be one of the most trippy, esoteric, surreal and all around bizarre things I have ever witnessed. You know how creepy and weird all the freaky dreams of giant oozing teddy bears that sing and destroy hospitals Tetsuo had in Akira? Imagine two hours of THAT being used to tell a Pinocchio "I want to become a real boy!" story, except the story is very confusing and Pinocchio is highly manic.

Watching the movie, you can see the underpinnings of what in concept would be a decent story, but Takashi Nakamura mangles it so much with bland characters, muddled storytelling, heaps of unexplained occurences, and dragged-out scenes that result is 2 hours of vegetative confusion as the viewer watches, their brain struggling to comprehend what's going on by gaining what little cognitive traction it can from the small kernals of coherrant storytelling underneath all the failure.

The mood in the movie changes a few times as well, and is a little jarring. It starts out with a little action in the beginning, but quickly slows down to a slow, plodding pace. After a certain event, things pep up and it almost feels like Disney movie. Then after another event, the movie begins a long, hour and a half descent into the aforementioned confusion, muddled story, and throws in plenty of strange, bizarre and sometimes disturbing imagery that heralds the collapse of a good concept into a rotting pile of failure. Its as if different parts of the story were written at different times when Namakura was in different moods then mashed together in some kind of horrid amalgamation that everyone was too polite to point out was rubbish.

The only redeeming qualities this movie has is that the animation is very fluid and well done (even if the character designs look a little uninspired and dated) and the sound is good. Other than that, there is plenty to write home about, none of which is complimentary.

Avoid this like the plague. Don't even accept it if someone is giving it to you for free. If someone gives it to you as a gift, smile as you accept it and then throw it away when they leave. Its that bad. read more