Enter the dimension of nocturnal animation!
 

PostED ON 18.10.2025

Japanese anime is utterly captivating. Four films: Princess Mononoke, Your Name., Belladonna of Sadness and Paprika, screened back-to-back, offer insight into the psyche of the land of manga, and much more...

These films boldly question everything that makes a living being, from its most admirable aspects to its most vengeful and monstrous ones, to the point of physical excess, endlessly warping themselves into bewildering and bewitching creatures. To let yourself be swept away by these worlds for a night, at an hour when the senses are heightened, is the whole point. Watching these œuvres in succession, the possibility of evolution and element of surprise arising at any moment, like Princess Mononoke, a girl warrior raised by wolves, spitting out a mouth full of blood (her bravery is strangely reassuring) is a singular experience.

In this animistic dimension, bodies can morph into hybrids endlessly. It is a world of giant apparitions of all kinds, such as the breathtaking appearance of the deer god in Princess Mononoke, one of the most sumptuous moments in the history of world cinema. Everything takes place in the dimension of dreams, where anything is possible. Take, for instance, Paprika, the avatar of a psychotherapist who travels through soft spheres with her patient thanks to an infernal device, or the two young characters of Your Name., who swap identities to live in each other's Japan 

We see everything differently. We visualise everything differently: the environment, bodies, inert materials, as if they were alive. Added to these masterpieces is a gem, Belladonna of Sadness. This adaptation of Michelet's La Sorcière, previously hidden from view, unfurls its magnificent watercolour hues swirling in an ultra-sensual and frenzied feminist narrative which, like the three other movies presented during this all-nighter, strives to understand the world! 

Virginie Apiou

Halle Tony Garnier
8.30 pm JAPANIME: AN ALL-NIGHTER OF JAPANESE ANIMATION
Princess Mononoke by Hayao Miyazaki (2h14)
Followed by Your Name. by Makoto Shinkai (1h46)
Followed by Belladonna of Sadness by Eiichi Yamamoto (1h26, Prohibited for ages -12)
Followed by Paprika by Satoshi Kon (1h30)

Orelsan, guest of honour at the Japanime all-nighter! 

AlloCiné Classiques Partenaire officiel de la Nuit du festival.