Oh no, another gem with very less votes and not a single review. Anyway, I know what many will think about this title, maybe draw comparison to Hiroshi Harada's Midori (1992). A big no, despite the title, the overall vibe is very different. It is a film that dares to mix genres, which I'm sure that not many animators in the west would not dare to do.
The action takes place in a near-future and it follows the nearing apocalypse and famine in Tokyo, Japan. This peaceful idyll is gradually being destroyed, ravaged by massive overpopulation and food shortage. As the location for his film, the director chooses a dystopian setup with a monochromatic Sepia tone. The crisis can be clearly seen in this nightmarish animation.
The movie has two protagonists. The first is Midori, living her uneventful life as a vegetarian and only eating vegetables. On an eventfully catastrophic day, she is visited by an uninvited guest (the 2nd protagonist) ad finds company. Midori is baffled by the creature, a vegetable named Midori-Ko, it looks like a vegan version of the mutant baby from David Lynch's Eraserhead (1977). Midori will have to battle her personal demons and must act as a guardian. Meanwhile, the scientists and the neighbours are hell-bent to get a piece of this creature, which is a solution or a dream food for the crisis.
What makes the film so interesting: The entire film is pervaded by a dark, cynical and sometimes really humorous, for example the fart scene s utterly absurd (in a good way) and I laughed out loud on a few occasions. I could define "Midori-Ko" in a broader sense as a dystopian dark comedy. While watching, few can compare the theme to Richard Fleischer's masterpiece Soylent Green (1973). Also, it is mixed with a style of Patrick Bokanowski, Vladimir Petkevich, Danuta Adamska-Strus, Tadanari Okamoto, Naoyuki Tsuji, George Ungar, Jan Svankmajer, a pinch of the Hubleys, Ceu D'Elia, Dalibor Baric, Maria Lassnig, Ishu Patel, Pramod Pati, Lawrence Jordan, Gisaburo Sugii. All thrown in a pot and stirred with some Frederic Back, Hieronymus Bosch, Dave Cooper and a lot of strange things in connection with a mixture of David Lynch.
As they say good things take time, I've read that Keita Kurosaka took 30,000 drawings and created this single-handedly with colored pencil over the course of 13-years production. It reminded me of another animated feature I saw recently by Polish director Mariusz Wilczynski, it took 11 years for him to finish the project, check out my review for Kill It and Leave This Town (2020).
Summing up: A work of art not to be missed, a treat for those who love the works of aforementioned artists.
