Directed by Kihachiro Kawamoto
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Kimstim/Kino)
An aristocratic young woman follows a calling to a mountain. She has visions of the ghost of a young man killed there many years in the past. She is inspired to write sutras and make a painting on a very large cloth made from the lotus plant. Filmed in stop-animation with hand-painted backgrounds, at times the film looks more like a sacred Buddhist text. While the plot leans towards a melodramatic love story between the woman and her dead prince, it probably works better as a religious allegory, which it makes no attempt to hide. Images of the prince are frequently overlaid with those of the Buddha. While pleasing, especially to Buddhists, a subtle approach would have been more appropriate for the subject matter. As presented, it is somewhat of a disappointment.
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