by Cain Noble-Davies
Worth: $16.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Junki Tozuka, Karu Kobayashi, Pierre Taki
Intro:
… emotional stunner.
Akutsu (Karu Kobayashi) lies on a bed in a prison cell. He is nearing the end of his life. He starts to reflect on his life as a younger man (Junki Tozuka), the chain of events that led to his life sentence, and whether he considers himself a good man in light of all this. By his bedside is a plant, a balsam flower, in a makeshift pot made out of an old tin can, and as Akutsu talks about his pre-prison memories, the flower… talks back.
This is the narrative frame for The Last Blossom, the debut original feature by director Baku Kinoshita and writer Kazuya Konomoto. The magical realism in its titular sassy talking plant echoes similar thematic textures in the creative duo’s breakout work on the 13-episode anthro-noir series Oddtaxi, where the anthropomorphism is an extension of the lead character’s social isolation and alienation. However, where Oddtaxi used that notion to link up with the underlying idea behind just about every talking animal media that exists (animals are more approachable than other people), Last Blossom flips it to show an ostensibly cute flower as the embodiment of Akutsu’s own self-loathing. His doubts that, despite his best intentions, everything still went wrong, given floral form.
The animation by studio CLAP (Pompo the Cinephile) does wonders at presenting both the grounded Yakuza-flavoured drama involving the humans, and the fantastical expressions of the balsam flower that looks like something uprooted from the garden in Disney’s Alice in Wonderland. The detailed backgrounds and character designs (even Akutsu’s impressively-long face) support the compelling performances to draw the audience deeper, while still offering wow moments, like a beautifully-rendered fireworks display and some of the more naturalistic uses of 3DCGI when showing cars on the road.
But even more than the look and sound (right down to an absolutely adorable kitchen rendition of ‘Stand By Me’), the way this film feels is something else entirely.
Konomoto’s script delicately nurtures Akutsu’s story and personality, of a man who did bad things for the best reasons, using a recurring motif of an Othello board for both its narrative construction and its protagonist’s hopes to take what’s in front of him and, both literally and figuratively, turn it around in his favour. And it’s in the quiet moments, as Akutsu slowly realises that he cares far more for those close to him than he himself admits out-loud, that the film’s grasp, gently squeezing the heart of the viewer, becomes apparent. As it is for Akutsu himself, the feeling of goodness creeps in like a weed, winds around, and delivers a herbaceous hug that feels like one’s heart will turn into its own firework.
The Last Blossom is as satisfying and well-planned as looking out over one’s own upkept garden. It makes for one of the more surprisingly-effective comfort watches in quite a while, mingling psychological whimsy and hardened crime grit to tell the story of a man making an inventory of his life, his love, and his worth. The animation is simply delightful, and the performances (especially the interplay between Kobayashi and Pierre Taki as the flower) add that extra flourish that turns this quiet drama into an emotional stunner.
