Ritual
"my unsound heart and the consuming loneliness of longing for someone. perhaps anyone will do. as long as that someone will love me constantly, ceaselessly, it will suffice"this has been in my watchlist forever and i finally got around to watch it! shunji iwai is my favorite director so it’s really fun seeing him act.
everything that hideaki anno makes, feels like a direct and raw translation of his being and his humanity. this movie was looked so pretty and felt so honest. his depictions of loneliness, isolation and dependency, and his explorations of identity in our postmodern society, where reality has been replaced by performance, resonate and connect with so much of the world. this feels especially so due to the vagueness of ritual, with its seemingly desolate, empty streets and industrial buildings with eccentric set deigns, and symbolic train motifs. his works are filled with contradictions and an strange unfulfilling and unresolved feeling of catharsis, riddled with existential internal conflicts. he isn’t here to entertain us, or make a spectacle. all he cares about is exploring and understanding himself, and who he is through his craft, and we are just bystanders of his process.