Kanashimi no Belladonna (Belladonna of Sadness)

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Alternative Titles

Synonyms: Tragedy of Belladonna

Japanese: 哀しみのベラドンナ

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Information

Type: Movie

Episodes: 1

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Jun 30, 1973

Producers: None found, add some

Licensors: Discotek Media, Cinelicious Pics

Studios: Mushi Production

Source: Book

Genres: Avant Garde, Drama

Theme: Historical

Duration: 1 hr. 27 min.

Rating: R+ - Mild Nudity

Statistics

Score: 7.16¹ (scored by 15,778 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #3355²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #3089

Members: 47,680

Favorites: 700

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Synopsis

The beautiful Jeanne marries a man named Jean, and the happy newlyweds make their way to the Lord's castle with a cow's worth of money for his blessings. However, the demonic Lord is unmoved by their offering, ignoring their desperate, impoverished pleas. The Lord's wife offers an alternative: Jeanne must become the Lord's conquest for the night in a ritual deflowering.

Scarred by the experience, the shaken Jeanne receives no sympathy from her husband. Instead, she is neglected. But as Jeanne drifts off to sleep, she is met by a strange spirit that encourages her to deliver retribution to those who wronged her. And with a mysterious surge of pleasure and an unquenching libido, Jeanne agrees.

Kanashimi no Belladonna is a captivating, psychosexual adventure that tells a story of cunning witchcraft and deceitful superstition in a poor, rural village of medieval France.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

Kanashimi no Belladonna was inspired by the 1862 book La Sorcière (Satanism and Witchcraft) by French historian Jules Michelet. It is the third and final film in the Animerama trilogy conceived by Osamu Tezuka, but it is the only one to be neither written nor directed by him.

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More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

Jeanne

Main

Nagayama, Aiko
Japanese

Devil

Main

Nakadai, Tatsuya
Japanese

Jean

Main

Itou, Takao
Japanese

Clown

Supporting

Akino, Taisaku
Japanese

Priest

Supporting

Yonekura, Masakane
Japanese

Narrator

Supporting

Nakayama, Chinatsu
Japanese

Lady

Supporting

Shimegi, Shigako
Japanese

Lord

Supporting

Takahashi, Masaya
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Yamamoto, Eiichi

Director, Script

Tashiro, Atsumi

Sound Director

Fukuda, Yoshiyuki

Script

Nakayama, Chinatsu

Theme Song Lyrics, Theme Song Performance

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Opening Theme

"Aoi Kagami no Naka de (青い鏡のなかで)" by Chinatsu Nakayama

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Ending Theme

"Kanashimi no Belladonna (哀しみのベラドンナ)" by Mayumi Tachibana

Reviews

Jun 13, 2023

IzzyMarrie

Recommended

Provacative, surreal, and psychedelic, this is a film unlike anything I've seen before. The artstyle, sometimes muted, washed with watercolor dripping down the screen, and other times loud with vivid reds and greens that pop out at the viewer, is as beautiful as it is haunting. The animation, minimal at best, is slightly choppy but surprisingly very fluid during very specific scenes. It all feels purposefully done, as if to make those scenes stand out even more than the others. The music also serves a very large role, other than the instruments helping to convey the tone of the scene, often the singer will serve ... as a dual narrator, as if to spell out the melancholy of the main character as well as the crossroads at which she stands.

This isn't going to be a movie for everyone. I'm going to get that right out of the way first and foremost. This is an arthouse film which employed some very experimental techniques at the time, ones which Toei Productions would later employ when they coined the term "ga-nime" (an extremely niche and often overlooked style of production which was unpopular and never wide spreading). However, at the heart of Belladonna of Sadness is an experience which reminds me of an emotionally charged, more narratively driven Angels Egg (mostly in its execution, but also religious imagery). If you've seen that film, you'll understand how each scene flows into the next with an almost dream-like fever, but that the story is mostly up for interpretation. I'd argue that the message and the story of Jeanne (the main character of Belladonna of Sadness) and her downfall is very straightforward despite its surrealism.

The story starts with a marriage, but after the lord demands more taxes than the husband can pay, his lady proposes that the virgin wife have her purity tainted. After that, nothing is the same for Jeanne as her life spirals after being reduced to an artform for the eyes of lustful men. One criticism I see often is that there's a romanticized depiction of her and every assault she suffers, however, I'd argue that depiction is strongly symbolic to how she is viewed vs how she views herself. During the latter half of the movie after she makes a deal (won't spoil it), her body is like a temple, but spirals in many scenes to be this twisted, unholy mass of flesh. And yet, despite all this, one thing I loved about her is that she was still willing to help others even when her cynicism and emptiness became like posion.

I wouldn't call this a love story. I wouldn't even call this a story of revenge. I don't say this often because I feel the term has become synonymous with certain unsavory women who's extremism has become laughable and reduced to a caricature of what the movement stood for, but this movie has a strong feminist message. I could carry on about the meaning of the phallic imagery throughout, or even her face transposed over the other women in the crowd at the end, but this review is already long. I will say as a closing, however, that it's the impact of the story of Jeanne which inspires me, and why I love the ending so much.

TLDR; if you enjoy morality tales laced with tragedy and experimental anime, this might be for you—but if you're not enjoying it after about 30 minutes, then drop it

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Nov 27, 2023

Szanowna_Herbata

Mixed Feelings

Bro, I hate making long reviews.

Anyway, Belladonna of Sadness is quite a masterpiece when it comes to symbolics and artstyle, but overall - not so much.
Sure it is about a woman who explores depths of her own mind and body, but I wouldn't say it's really that interesting.

Symbolics such as the devil, the whole belladonna thing and colour symbolics are really good, they actually made me interested in this whole film.
I also can't complain about the animation, it's a anime from 1973, we can't expect Studio Bones like quality. Artstyle - absolutely gorgeous, it truly made the movie stand out from ...

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Oct 18, 2023

tropika

Not Recommended

Psychedelic shitshow that sexualises sexual violence and abuse towards women. I think I made a mistake watching this because Osamu Dezaki was involved and Tatsuya Nakadai voice acted in it, lesson learnt. It's supposed to be about sexual liberation but the art is crude and brutally exploitative. The creator of this movie were probably a bunch of men with no idea the nuance of the experience of woman and their sexuality. Really unique art and watercolours used, really some of the frames were gorgeous. But tacky and gaudy execution.

I rarely write reviews, i just hate this movie so much i had to write one.

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Recent Forum Discussion

Poll: Kanashimi no Belladonna Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Alicia3000 - Oct 11, 2009	51 replies	by gaand00a »» Aug 7, 12:17 PM
Is the remaster available for purchase or anything? BasedCereal - Aug 15, 2016	3 replies	by Etherious_123 »» Apr 20, 2021 8:16 AM
Her Hell shegoblin - Sep 7, 2008	0 replies	by shegoblin »» Sep 7, 2008 4:25 AM

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Kanashimi no Belladonna

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