The way things have always been. The way things have always been done. The way things will always be. A trinity of poisonous lies.

A world run on murder, rape, torture, privation, the annihilation of all known being in exchange for second-order abstract value meaningless without the existence of life on earth. Is this not sacrifice enough? What more should be sacrificed and for what?

The Satanic Witch draws their power from the time and space after trauma, privation, torture, rape, death, when what has been allotted by the empty promises of rights and station and labor and position has been stripped from you by the very entities who proposed giving you these things in the first place. When all…

In 1973, the Japanese equivalent of Walt Disney decided to adapt a 19th century book about the feminist history of witchcraft into an animated prog-rock musical about a medieval peasant girl who gets gang-raped on her wedding night and then turns to Satan for help with her revenge. This is really a thing that happened. Strange even by the impossibly high standards of Japanese cinema, the wild and exhausting "Belladonna of Sadness" was conceived by Osamu Tezuka — the godfather of manga — as the third and final chapter of Mushi Productions' Animerama trilogy (a series of explicitly adult animated films that also included erotic riffs on "Cleopatra" and "A Thousand and One Nights").

Tezuka would drop out of the…

Belladonna of Sadness is an erotic Japanese animated rock opera that is hauntingly gorgeous through its explicit imagery and spellbinding soundtrack. It tells a medieval folklore tale through almost entirely still images and sublime Japanese voice acting, with the occasional musical number periodically appearing. The sensual theme song resonates throughout the story, crawling into the mind to solidify its entrancing tune that perfectly resonates the melancholy tale.

This is a love story unlike anything you've ever seen and possibly will ever see. Nearly every frame is either covered with brutal violence or explicit sexual imagery, but none of the sexual portions feel stimulating in any way. Rather, the images feel like individual pieces of art, desiring to tell a story…

"Belladonna of Sadness" è un film sensuale, poetico ed affascinante sia nella forma che nel contenuto. Un'opera incredibile, forte di una colonna sonora perfetta per la storia narrata e di uno stile di disegno unico nel suo genere. Un lavoro perfetto che ha ispirato innumerevoli regie nel corso della storia, acquisendo così il titolo di capolavoro universale. "Belladonna of Sadness" è un trattato poetico a favore della donna, di quella figura da sempre vessata dall'uomo, ma pur sempre a lei inferiore. Un film che esalta la figura femminile, sia nella sua forma, sempre sensuale ed eterea, che nella sua potenza, caratteriale ed intellettuale.
I colori ad acquerello, sempre in movimento, e il tratto, spesso appena abbozzato e a volte più…