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[Oersted]

This is the kind of experience that only cinema can provide, and in this case it is so utterly brazen and undeniably bold that it demands an audience. Submit, dear viewers, you owe this to yourself, Belladonna of Sadness is a film that demands the biggest screen possible. Seek it out and you will be rewarded.

http://twitchfilm.com/2016/05/revie...s-a-spellbinding-work-of-carnal-beauty-1.html

But of course it’s impossible to divorce the film’s aesthetic from its text, to engage its eroticism without engaging its sexual abuses, and to ignore its studied portrayal of witchery. Belladonna of Sadness is almost scholarly, or it would be were it not so off-the-wall and cheeky. Feminine liberation, couched in the practices of witchcraft, is an act of rebellion against the oppression of patriarchal rule. To Yamamoto specifically, it is Jeanne’s declaration of sovereignty over the body. Yet everything about his film that is real is subsumed by everything that isn’t. Ultimately, you won’t walk out of the theater and consider the statements Belladonna of Sadness makes about gender equality and social protest. You’ll be too bewildered waiting for the comedown.

http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/05/belladonna-of-sadness.html

Yamamoto and his team transform Michelet’s theory of witchcraft as a form of rebellion against political and religious oppression into an anti-authoritarian parable that combines feminist agitprop, erotic art, and the rape-revenge plotting of the era’s sexploitation films. In feudal France, a young woman named Jeanne (Aiko Nagayama) defies the powers that be—explicitly connected with sexual violence and repressed desire—through sexual pleasure and its mythological analogue, magic. Perhaps too ambitious for its own good (or at least its budget), the film is impossible to dismiss, even if it exhausts its reserve of ideas.

http://www.avclub.com/review/animated-psychosexual-freak-out-belladonna-sadness-236297

"Belladonna of Sadness" could certainly have made the same points in half the time — the unceasing wail of trippy imagery begins to blur into nonsense, no matter how clever some of it may be — and the wild leaps the film makes in its final moments suggest that Yamamoto was too hamstrung by pervy ticket-buyers to really make the unbridled feminist manifesto he had in mind. Still, there's an undeniable genius at work here, strong enough to survive the psychedelic sleaze that's been baked into every frame.

http://www.indiewire.com/article/be...eview-1973-eiichi-yamamoto-japanese-animation

“Belladonna of Sadness” is undoubtedly a landmark of animated film, and arguably a masterpiece. But it’s a very disquieting one. After experiencing the picture, you are left with the nagging suspicion that its retrograde ideology and its ravishing imagery are not contradictory attributes but are, rather, inextricably codependent.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/06/movies/belladonna-of-sadness-review-japanese-animation.html

US screenings and NSFW trailer

http://www.cineliciouspics.com/belladonna-of-sadness/

 

[wenis]

I want to see this so much.

 

[javac]

Can't wait to get the Blu-ray, seems like they did a splendid job with the restoration.

 

[HStallion]

Is this playing in the US at all? Would love to see this on the big screen

 

[umop_3pisdn]

I love this movie. The way it tackles its themes really is kind of academic, and I mean that in the best way.

 

[Oersted]

Is this playing in the US at all? Would love to see this on the big screen

The reviews are due to the US release. You can find locations and dates for screenings here

http://www.cineliciouspics.com/belladonna-of-sadness/

 

[XANDER CAGE]

I would love a chance to see this on a big screen. Some of my favorite animation visuals ever.

 

[wanderingprostheyltite]

Saw this right after seeing The Witch earlier when this was first posted about here. They complemented each other well

Really cool movie, gorgeous art. Can't wait to see the restored.

 

[RS4-]

Probably gonna catch it in the theatre. But Christ man, 11 PM - 2 AM screenings.

Won't get home until like 3.

 

[Parham]

The reviews are due to the US release. You can find locations and dates for screenings here

http://www.cineliciouspics.com/belladonna-of-sadness/

Would love to see this in theaters, but I'm not sure it's worth the two hour drive each way.

 

[HStallion]

The reviews are due to the US release. You can find locations and dates for screenings here

http://www.cineliciouspics.com/belladonna-of-sadness/

Thanks! Yes it's playing in Philly in a few weeks. Going to make a trip down there for this.

 

[wenis]

The reviews are due to the US release. You can find locations and dates for screenings here

http://www.cineliciouspics.com/belladonna-of-sadness/

Sweet, bought tickets to see it on my birthday.

 

[.JayZii]

I liked this movie, but didn't love it. It has some fantastic visuals, but it's pacing felt cumbersome to me when I watched it a few years ago.

I'm definitely down to give it another viewing, though, especially if the visuals have been restored.

 

[Messofanego]

This looks awesome. Any word of a UK/European release or only NA?

 

[Oersted]

This looks awesome. Any word of a UK/European release or only NA?

This release, with a exception of a screening at the Mumbai filmfestival, is US only.