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Anime
Japan · 1973
86 min
Anime · Japan · 1973

Belladonna of Sadness

Eiichi Yamamoto·86 min

A medieval village, a wedding night, a lord who claims a brutal right to the bride. Jeanne is assaulted and cast out, and a small phallic devil offers her power in exchange for herself. She takes it, and becomes a healer, then a heretic, then a witch the whole village turns to and then turns on. The film barely moves in the usual sense. Most of it is long painted scrolls that the camera pans across, watercolor erotica and violence by Kuni Fukai, while a jazz-rock score plays underneath. It was a commercial flop that bankrupted its studio. It is also one of the strangest, most beautiful things ever drawn for adults.

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