Ai naki mori de sakebe

Sion Sono is a special director. He does things his way and his movies are quite weird mostly to say the least. So the first review (if you can call three sentences a review) I read here did not surprise me. And I don't even mean the low score (1/10), but the argument that was made that there are too many characters and you could not concentrate on one individual (hero?).

Maybe that can work as a warning. Either that other "review" or me mentioning it. Whatever the case, if you go in this, be prepared to see a meta take on the very infamous forest (this is not the first movie about it and surely won't be the last). There are many things going on and some may feel supernatural (this is what the forest is famously know for after all) ... but what is the mystery and what will it all lead to?

Tbh i don't understand why people are saying it's boring and waste of time.

A Tips: no offense but Please Watch the Original Japanese Language Version Instead of The English Dub, It's Not Dialog-Heavy either

This movie went from pure to dark and make you question humanity (i am not a fan of violence and twisted thing but I am up for the psychological part and the storyline) it just starting to get so dark bit by bit, i am scared to tears about how fragile they can be when they are being treaten to the edge and following the twisted order. Some are being torture both physically and mentally with the blinded love¿ for passion and pride.

The actor and actress portray it incredibly For me, i think that the trailer itself did not advertise the climax of the movie (its being advertised as pure and not the dark psychological manipulative twisted part) maybe that's why the 2 hour length is scaring people away.

...I decided to write something regarding the 1 and 2 stars that others put. For what I read they do not aware of Sono s films and style. They do not understand Japanese pop culture too. How they can go to a film so blinded and then let a comment here as they kno w something about that type of cinema? I prefer to not comment about the plot but as mentioned is inspired in a serial killer from the late 90s. -The films is long; longer than most Japanese ones but maintain the expectations. Actors are pretty good in their rolls. Color palette and tense music are spot on.

Sono Sion is a prolific filmmaker. Ergo they can't all be hits. This one is deck definitely a miss. The lack of story is not conducive to the film's 2 hours and 40 minute runtime. The cinematography is not on par with his other films (ie: Cold Fish). The ending is also very disappointing. If you haven't seen any of his films, I recommend starting with Suicide Circle. Cold Fish and Why Don't You Play in Hell? are also good in different ways.

This film is like a sort of Sion Sono starter pack for a generation that hasn't grown up watching his output from 2000-2015. Its characters, situations, premises, visual motifs, even locations are all taken from films (some, not all - since Sono has also made films outside his regular violent, emotive, hyperactive, bat-crazy signature fares) from this era: Noriko's Dinner Table, Strange Circus, Love Exposure, Cold Fish, Guilty of Romance and Why Dont You Play in Hell to be precise. These six films, along with minor references to his other films, form of the universe of "The Forest of Love". Its characters fluidly pass from one film to the other. And together they establish the ethos that is a standard Sono film. In the hands of any other director this idea would appear too self-indulgent to execute. But Sono introduces a self-conscious metaphysical angle that tries to posit all the violence and insanity and torture as services to cinema, or his kind of cinema. "Jinsei wa Eiga!"- its characters proclaim not-so-subtly.

With a premise that is interesting enough to get his fans and newer audience hooked right from the start (no matter what follows afterwards), this film has a lot of memorable moments to offer. But sadly, for a fan, there's nothing essentially new. We have all seen this before, done better. The six films I mentioned - each of them are brilliant in their own ways because they exhaust their respective ideas both philosophically and in craft. In comparison, this appears little more than a list of checked boxes, like an already-established band playing their greatest hits on an overseas stage, rather than a new album.

6.5/10