Ritual

There's an ominous presence of a countdown that makes you brace for the worst impact possible and this kept me glued on the screen till the closing titles. But the ending will surprise you. Ritual is beyond no doubt a very gutting and depressing movie. The protagonist - whom isn't named - is not really the Director, despite he's the voice and the main point of view we get of the story, but it's the woman, played by Fujitani Ayako (who also wrote the original material). She appears to suffer from psychosis, maybe of schizoid nature and she's constantly living in her world of fantasies, built on magic fantasies and elaborated rituals. She's basically stuck in a very unstable loop. She's very suicidal, but it's not because she can't really value the consequences of her very strong pull towards death. Throughout the movie we learn of her traumas and while she's obviously an unreliable narrator, we soon realize that it was her poisoned past that makes her so afraid of the future, so much so that she can only think of an infinitely reiterated "tomorrow", which is "her birthday". What baffled me is that this person, who is absolutely too fragile, was roaming free and ignored by everyone, until the probable tragedy. If she dies, who will care behind picking up the corpse and burying it? Hard to say, no? But then I remembered the movie was set in Japan. Anno isn't afraid of criticizing the darkest, ugliest sides of Japanese society, as many weebs and ignorants do when they flock over there. I think you can't appreciate, much more value a country or a culture without being informed even on those sides that are constantly swept under the rug. In fact, i feel kind of alienated when people tell me how much Italy is beautiful because of her monuments and scenery, and history and culture (and I can't stress this enough, i agree with them) but then ignore the true disgusting side of it. Even though is more comfortable if people aren't really educated on our bad sides, we shouldn't be afraid to do so. So, it's clear that the Woman (i don't really agree with not giving her a name, to be clear. Of course it serves the purpose of making us understand that this isn't an isolated case, that in every society that left behind humanity for profit there are people at the margin that don't recieve help whatsoever and are often ostracized and belittled - such things happen to the protagonist, too) is left alone and isolated from the world. She's in a state of neglect and she often forgets to eat or sleep. At this point, her infinite loop gets invaded by this alien to her world: the Director (played by Shunji Iwai, it's nice to see a collaboration between the two). He's drawn to her at first because he's living the same situation as her, of course in a more nuanced and mature way. Soon he becomes much more invested in her, even though Anno murked the waters a bit with many plot elements that led me to believe that he was just using her and was eager to flee. To be fair, the movie also doesn't gloss over the fact that to help a person so traumatized is very draining and so there's a love-hate relationship, in a sense. They can't communicate clearly for obvious reasons on both parts. And there's also that constant countdown, the "rituals", The Woman's instability and altered states... So you really prepare yourself for the worst and this fills the movie with a very deep and heavy despair. I felt anger in many points because, as i said, it's really ridiculous that a person this vulnerable is ignored by everyone. But i guess that this is a very great movie to prepare yourself to the real world when you study psychology. I really loved the ending as it felt like a ray of sun in an ocean of darkness. That is if you want to be optimistic, but at some point you have to act a suspension of disbelief for your own sanity. Of course the basis for their relationship may be dwindling, but i saw in the last instants of the movie that the Director decided to take responsiblity towards the Woman and to help her face "tomorrow". And she may have had her first healthy example of love that she longed for so long. So let's pretend that things went smooth after the 33rd day. As in Love&Pop, Anno shows a lively and outlandish creativity as he dissects the standards of film. The result is very experimental and works very well. It's not that kind of experiment that's so idiosyncratic that you feel no pleasure or interest in watching. Fujitani not only wrote an incredible and moving story, but she also had an incredible performance. Probably it's because she wrote the character and she felt an unique bond with her, almost as if she existed... But this acting was golden.