Genji Monogatari

Genji Monogatari is the type of film that will only be enjoyable to certain types of people. It seems to be the type of film that you either find brilliant or a waste of time, no in between. If you are patient and can enjoy a film for more than just its story, then I think you will find Genji Monogatari to be a valuable cinematic experience.

I came across this film randomly one night in my YouTube recommended. I thought the thumbnail picture was interesting, so I clicked it and only planned to watch the first five minutes to see what it was like so ... I could decide if I wanted to watch it some other time. (This was at midnight as I was scrolling my phone before bed.) Instead, I ended up watching the entire movie right then, staying up way later than I usually do just because I was too fascinated to pause it til tomorrow.

Sound 10/10
First and foremost, this movie is defined by its music. I am a huge fan of soundtracks and always take care to pay attention to the sound of a movie, and I promise that this soundtrack by Haruomi Hosono has to be the best film score I've ever heard -- American, Japanese, or otherwise. The mixture of natural ambience, Japanese folk instruments, and melancholy chord progressions manifests a unique vibe that defines the movie. At times the music feels almost vaporwave with its slow, moody '80s synths (such as the song "Kechigan"), and at other times it feels ethereal and heavenly beyond human capability (the song "Wakamurasaki" is particularly striking). If nothing else, this soundtrack demands admiration.

Art 10/10
The other major strength of this movie is its lovely art style. Faces, clothing, scenery, etc. are all drawn in such an interesting way. The color choice is also excellent. You can also notice the attention to detail in the artwork. For example, in the Heian Period, it was considered inappropriate for the inside of your mouth to be visible, so people would speak with their lips as closed as possible -- which you can see in how they drew their speaking, the lips barely move. The layers of beautiful clothing -- so much so that they are a burden to walk -- are also historically accurate of Heian aristocracy. There are parts of the film that are experimental, such as the strange opening credits and the ending. The visuals are really such a treat.


Story 6/10
Truth be told, the story itself is not that thrilling. I had never heard of Genji Monogatari before watching, so I couldn't figure out what was happening for a lot of the movie. The plot is best enjoyed if you read what it's about beforehand (like I send, I jumped right in without even reading the description) and I know some other reviewers said its not entirely loyal to the ancient classic. On the other hand, I understood what was going on well enough for the ending to have an emotional tug on me, so if you really pay attention you'll be fine.

Characters 6/10
While Genji isn't exactly likable, he does perfectly capture the quintessential "handsome prince" of the Heian Period -- angsty, reserved, polyamorous, and beautiful. If you ever read up on the Heian Period (or watch the Crash Course on YouTube) the aristocracy really behaved like this. They spoke in poems and slept around and acted sad all the time -- that was the culture. To that effect, the movie captured Heian life well. However, beyond the historical accuracy, most of the characters are pretty flat. I had trouble telling the various women apart because they were drawn very similarly (except their hair, I realized) and all acted basically exactly the same. No one had any flavor to them -- each character was interchangeable with all the others, personality wise.

Overall, Genji Monogatari is movie best enjoyed alone, in the dark, with the best speaker system and biggest screen you can access. Resist the urge to check your phone during the slow parts, don't pause it to go get food or finish a different time. I highly recommend watching John Green's Crash Course on the Heian Period prior to watching the movie so that you can appreciate (and understand) what you're seeing.

The Tale of Genji (1987) was a unique watching for me. All stories share one very common goal, telling a story. There are many forms of story telling based on the format an author chooses to present his or her story to the audience, and each form of story telling has its own strengths and limitations depending on the format. Books are some of the oldest form of storytelling, and they rely on the literary skills of the author to tell the audience what is going one using only words. A movie needs visuals, environments, acting, and many other factors on top of a well ... written script in order to effectively tell a story. Filmmakers have to find the perfect balance between visuals and dialogue to tell their stories based on what the story they want to write demands. In the Tale of Genji (1987), director Gisaburo Sugii chose the "show, don't tell" narrative technique to story telling. This technique focuses more on visuals to tell the story as opposed to dialogue. In my opinion, the movie had too much emphasis on the visuals and not enough on the dialogue to form an easy to understand story, and then it ends abruptly. After some brief research, turns out the movie only adapted the first third of the entire story. This is a movie that is visually beautiful, but hard to follow if the viewer isn't already familiar with the overall story. I appreciate the movie for what it is, however I regret to say that I am not the target audience for this style of film.

This is the kind of movie you saw because you saw some art or maybe a gif, maybe you even know about the novel but then this is disappointment over disappoint
Genji (I believe is a representation of his era) is just an awful person, that wouldn't be so bad if it were entertaining to watch but it really feels like there's no plot, so you have over an hour (because there's a lot of transitions and ¨blank¨ spaces) of Genji being an awful person to every woman he interacts with.
take the slice of life concept and elevate that in 10
I actually watched it on x2 ... speed and still it seemed so slow