Spotlight Anime: Kanashimi no Belladonna

(...)

Freely inspired in a book about witchcraft published on the 19th century, the movie shows the way of a woman that, cursed by an intense beauty, sees herself - by the force of need - possessed by a strange sexual demon. At each moment we think that she can finally be happy, even though she has the devil inside her, but the forces of evil will stop that possibility under any circumstance.

With a little touch of irony, this movie presents as a feminist manifesto (as we can see in conclusion). Notice that, even with the sexual motif under the narrative and the proposed images, the victim - Jeanne - is never guilty and all her evil or strange actions are motivated by her possession. Thus, who appears as terrible is not the demon, much less Jeanne, but the people that porsue her and mistreat her having in sight her purification. Notice as well that the "bad" deeds are, in any case, a good thing: cure the disease, show beautiful things, promote a general happyness in babelic orgies

The movie touches the genius by the power of its animatyion. Consider that this was produced in 1973! There were not computers to make these things and this is well demonstrated by the sequences we watch. It's a violent movie: it shows us ugly things, terrible things, as they should be. However, it can get to an erotic charge that is almost poetic, stretching our hearts. We can't say the images move a lote. However, there is so much expression in them that they give as a place to imagine.

Another wonderful aspect is the soundtrack. If at the begginning we have some pop moments that can be cornyO, the music evolves quickly, always constant, to a very acid experimental jazz that mashes perfectly with the shown scenes, as well as working perfectly as a singular piece.

It was an anime that touched me and made me think how animation has been evolving in an erratic direction since the 70s. It seems that back in the time they still worried about making beautiful things. I highly recommend it!