Jellyfish Eyes (2013)

I dove into this film completely blind - not knowing what it was about or what to expect. The only thing I knew was that it had Saito Takumi in it lol. This film is a coming-of-age film mainly focusing on a young boy who moves to new town with his newly widowed mother. He soon stumbles upon a cute and strange creature and quickly befriends it eventually finding out that he is not the only one to have one of these 'FRIENDS'.

What I liked about this film was that it conveyed some very pro-children/pro-imagination themes. It also tugged a bit at issues such as the Fukushima disaster and religion/cultism and their impact. After watching the film and finding out that it was directed by Takashi Murakami (who is personally one of my favourite artists), it was not much of a surprise that this film explored those themes and was filled with interesting creatures. I think for many watching this film, its overall storyline will have you raising your eyebrows, but make no mistake, this film was intended for children and will definitely require some suspension of disbelief. However, even with it's /interesting/ plot, I think the film still kind of fell flat in its execution of the story as it wasn't fulling gripping to me, as well as the pacing felt a bit all over the place.

I did think that the acting in this film was good, especially by the child actors. Sueoka Takuto, who played Masashi, definitely has the potential to become an outstanding actor. It was also just great that you can tell that the child actors had a lot of fun filming this. I also thought this film had some pretty good shots and cinematography as well. The CGI wasn't the best, but hey, it's all about using our imagination anyway, right? This was Takashi Murakami's first live-action film and I think it was good considering. I'm hoping he will venture into the filming world a little more often because I think he has potential to be a great director. (Especially for those of us who like the more outlandish kind of Japanese films.)

Honestly, I don't think this film will suit everyone's tastes and most will just think it's weird, but it does have its charm and is filled with some sweet and touching moment. It is definitely interesting.

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