Akira

The world is crumbling and tearing apart, revealing its destructive inner core. The chiming graph sings a new reality into existence, creeping slowly into the frame. The world is overtaken and crawling with biological, man-made travesty, reality is replaced by mental force. The breakdown of the mind destroys humanity philosophically, politically and literally as it is engulfed in rebirth. Drugs don’t hallucinate powers but awaken the ancient, universal energy and turmoil in us all, the stardust and memory of being the world and reality itself. The children join the void and the unknowable, evolving past our own understanding. The beginning is the end, childhood and old age; an amoeba with the conciseness of a human, a man with a mind of god. The animation is the perfect medium of black and white, drawn art, that is endlessly interpretable. You’re left looking at at the birth of a new universe, the white and black dots of reality, an eye staring back at you, you define and control reality.  The physical becomes the mental, the unthinkable is animated. Unemployed angsty biker gangs bring the destruction of status quo. Tribal, terrifying synths, accelerating, wooden percussion and breath carry this broken society into the stars. Motorbikes are the vessels of escape for these orphan vagrant teenagers, as capsules become the transport for a new world you control. Tetsuo’s energy graph was so strong because of his turbulent insecurity, that grew more than his own ego could handle. Kaneda, his old childhood friend follows his to the end, partly for his crush, partly to kill him but mostly to save him from himself. Their core friendship and final scene of them biking away with his ghost is dreamlike and heartbreaking, on paper he is dead. The military coup, revolutionaries and government all fight for control of the uncontrollable, that can destroy them all. From the late night city fights, to lucid daydream childhood horror, this is a film that evolves humanity to its gory limit.  One of the most unique films that can explore the evolution of our own perception in vibrant, Neo-Tyoko dystopic vision. Watching this on the biggest screen in uk made this overwhelming and omnipotent. One of the best films ever made. 10/10/10/10/10