SummaryTokyo, a few days after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Kyoko suddenly leaves her husband after spending five days in a row glued to unfolding earthquake footage on TV. Her helpless husband Komura takes a week’s leave from work and heads north to deliver a box and its unknown contents to two young women. His colleague Katagiri, a simple debt col... Read More
Directed By:Pierre Földes
Written By:Pierre Földes, Haruki Murakami
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
Metascore
Generally Favorable
69
User score
Mixed or Average
5.0
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Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
62% Positive
8 Reviews
8 Reviews
38% Mixed
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Apr 15, 2023
90
Porous enough in their philosophical intent though as not to impose a strict meaning, and yet sufficiently potent to make us reassess our priorities, the array of interpersonal conflicts floating in the idiosyncratic “Blind Willow” feel like elegantly animated lucid dreams full of poetic imagery: far from realistic but viscerally truthful.
Apr 12, 2023
83
Földes’ movie succeeds as both a tribute to a living legend and a reminder that nothing is ever quite as unfilmable as it seems. Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is far from the definitive Murakami movie. But for now, it’s one of the best ones we’ve got.
Mar 28, 2023
80
It has the ruminative lightness, almost weightlessness, the watercolour delicacy and reticence of the emotions, the sense of the uncanny, the insistent play of erotic possibility and that Murakami keynote: a cat.
May 30, 2023
78
Földes manages to balance the potentially dissonant tones of the diverse source material and create something akin to a story, one with diversions created as side characters relate elements of some of the smaller chapters within the books as anecdotes and memories.
Mar 31, 2023
60
The film does well to capture the probing literary spirit of Murakami, even if it doesn’t quite manage to channel the intense emotional aspect of its work, instead coming across as dryly ironic and detached.
May 30, 2023
50
Somehow, for all the work that went into the film, it comes across as something that may have worked better as an audiobook.
Apr 10, 2023
50
Some pleasingly odd visuals and a sustained off-kilter mood will likely please many animation fans who haven’t had any exposure to the source material, but Pierre Foldes’s film ultimately fails to create any clear identity of its own.
User score
Mixed or Average
40% Positive
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
40% Mixed
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
20% Negative
1 Rating
1 Rating
Dec 19, 2023
5
This film features quality animation and the refreshing perspective of Japanese characters, but is also plotless and relatively uninteresting. Not too sure what the filmmakers were aiming for with this one.
Apr 17, 2023
4
A boring, ponderous piece of beauty that makes you wish you were watching something else. Murakami fans and animation buffs will enjoy the slight pleasures here: often gorgeous art and atmospheric situations colliding in a haze of bizarre visuals. But nothing links up – the viewer has to work far too hard to piece together the “narrative”, which has no real pay-off.
Production Company:
- Miyu Productions
- Cinémadefacto
- Doghouse Films
- micro_scope
- Productions l'Unite Centrale
- An Original Picture
- Studio MA
- Arte France Cinéma
- Auvergne Rhône-Alpes Cinéma
- ARTE
- Ciné+
- Eurimages
- MEDIA Programme of the European Union
- Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée (CNC)
- Téléfilm Canada
- Société de Développement des Entreprises Culturelles (SODEC)
- Crédit d'Impôt Cinéma et Télévision
- Gestion SODEC
- Luxembourg Film Fund
- The Harold Greenberg Fund
- Crédit d'Impôt pour la Production Cinématographique ou Magnétoscopique Canadienne
- Nederlands Filmfonds
- Région Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
- La Région Île-de-France
- Région Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
- Région Nouvelle-Aquitaine
- Cinéventure 5
- Cinémage 14
- Cinéaxe
- Arte Cofinova
- Fondation GAN pour le Cinéma
- Agence Nationale de Gestion des Oeuvres Audiovisuelles (ANGOA)
Release Date:Apr 14, 2023
Duration:1 h 50 m
Awards
Annecy International Animated Film Festival
• 1 Win & 2 Nominations
Les Arcs European Film Festival
• 1 Win & 2 Nominations
The Guardian's Best Films
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
