Yoru no Hi

It's very tricky to review movies such as this.
They're all so very abstract and open to interpretation... oh, and short.

For what it is, I find it brilliant. The story is meh, but who needs a story when you have such an ernest setting; the characters are meh, but you learn everything you need to know about them.

The art is brilliant and the score isn't far behind. The story, if you can call it that, is lovely.

It's a movie meant to transmite a feeling and I have an idea what that feeling is and you, after watching it, will probably arrive at a different conclusion, ... but that's exactly what this types of movies are all about.

At the end of the day, the most important thing is that you feel something and I did.

Feel. Philip?

Another Shiroki Saori oil painting on glass short, this one being the shortest available on MAL and perhaps the simplest. It's more of a vignette than a story—an interesting, even somewhat ordinary scene, portrayed with nightmarish aesthetics and atmosphere. This is like a ghastly horror film in sound and image, but nothing horrible happens. I suppose Saori just has a knack for darker moods. The technique is, again, beautiful, and the scene is strongly executed. The moth flying around, its shadow cast, reflected in the eyes, and the harsh light is all wonderful. The stark chiaroscuro of the scene and the minimal lighting render this ... highly textural, and more pristine. Other Saori shorts have a very visible streak effect when the characters move, but the low lighting masks these artifacts—for better or worse, yet I'd say it's for the better.

There's an old man, a baby, and a moth featured as the most prominent characters. And they're all really creepy. The baby looks dead (it's not), and I'm not even sure if the old man has eye balls. The actual events are irrelevant other than the moth landing or being placed over the eyes—the eye pattern of the moth becoming the eyes. There's some sense of wonder and awe, maybe even something spiritual (OR MKULTRA EXPERIMENTS PROJECT MONARCH OMG).

Probably the most interesting moment is when the moth lands on a lamp and it burns out, the scene fading to black—a nice way to end, but it also implies a greater significance to the moth and its touch.

Rate a 4
English dubbed
Genre:art film
Special Note: The only reason this film is marked as english audio or dubbed in this case is because of background chatter of a couple seconds of radio. Aside from that there was no spoken words or subtitles.

Story/art
Unclear. Going from the art you see no color aside from black and white. Which one might dismiss to be an old film but they would be wrong. Instead the black and white concept was used in effort to produce a gloomy outlook. As for the art style it was mostly uncut drawings back to back. I say uncut because you can in a ... way see eraser marks. As to why that approach was chosen i am not sure. I am guessing it added a certain statement on constant changes. So, one could say with this information thus far that the story was a depressing tale but on what remains a mystery. My theory is that the message was masked emotions are found in infants. While we want to construct them in the best way we can we can't for what they want won't be clear until they have grown up. Or simply put the madness of the young-lings.

Sound
Clearly off tempo. Also, there were opportunities missed where sound could have been added such as the intro, the child, and the fireworks.

Overall: this film would be best appreciated if you liked films that plot were left unclear or unknown. Or if you are an art lover and would like to see a different type of artwork expression(style).