Cheap Night on the Galactic Railroad (Video) (Gisaburo Sugii) Price

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Customer Reviews of Night on the Galactic Railroad

Many reviewers will note, and accurately so, that this movie is both heavy and slow as melted gold. It's true: in our current world of sound bites and media clips, fast action and short attention, this movie stands alone. This is especially so when the movie is compared to other anime, a category under which fall some of the fastest and slickest movies in the world. If nothing else, "Night on the Galactic Railroad" gets points for sheer originality and ingenuity.

Gisaburo Sugii (the director) has taken Kenji Miyazawa's children's story and created for it a living atmosphere. While highly detailed backgrounds are nothing new for anime, "Night on the Galactic Railroad" combines its finely crafted images with a brilliant use of frame shots, pacing, and audio montage to create a surreal and ethereal viewing experience.

While often advertised as a children's movie, "Night on the Galactic Railroad" most certainly does not tell a very light story. With both religious and nihilistic imagery, Sugii presents us with a powerful treatise on death and life. However, even if you do not appreciate the story itself, the beauty in the dream-like artwork and animation cannot be denied.

If this is the kind of movie that you'd just as soon sleep through, then you're missing out on some amazing cinema. Admittedly, most people these days would probably rather numb their brains in front of the "Tomb Raider" movie, than sit through the likes of "Don't Look Now" or "Blow Up." But, who knows....

If you want to be pulled into a beautifully crafted and mesmerizing world, then watch "Night on the Galactic Railroad."

One of the best animated films ever made
This film is based on the story "Ginka Tetsudo no Yoru" by Miyazawa Kenji. This film was originally released as a major motion picture in Japan where the complete works of Miyazawa Kenji were reissued and sold in theatre lobbies. By comparison, Tonari no Totoro was a double bill with Graves of the Fireflies and passed with comparatively little notice.

Miyazawa Kenji was a significant poet and author of children's literature in the early twentieth century. As noted by others, death is a major theme in this film as are issues of friendship and family responsibility. The film is rather weighty and seriously beautiful.

Although the characters are human beings in the original Japanese story, they are primarily represented by cats in the film. This choice was a bit controversial when the film was originally released. The characters in the original story are clearly human beings and Japan does not have a strong tradition of anthropomorphic animals in either manga or anime. Further, anthropomorphic animals in folklore such as the badger and the fox are often dangerous and not sympathetic at all. Those who have read published mistranslations of the original story may be surprised to learn that the main characters have Italian names. Regardless, the characters and story are quite compelling. I was deeply moved by the film when I first saw it and subsequently read the original story in Japanese.

The artwork and animation for this film are both excellent. However, those who are fond of the cut-still approach to animation often found in Japanese animation for television may be disappointed by this film. Rather, the drawing and animation style of this film reminds me of a dark version of Disney's Fantasia of sixty years ago. Some of the images in the film remind me of impressionist or post-impressionist paintings. Film music and film sound are also quite pronounced in this film. Both the recurring theme first heard in the opening credits and the sound of the train on the tracks provide a recurring leit motif for what is an episodic film structured around various locations which often have symbolic importance. This recurrent symbolism reflects the Miyazawa Kenji who is noted as an important Japanese Christian poet who wrote European style poetry.

My copy of the DVD for this movie has a few technical flaws which suggest that it was not made from an original negative.

I have no idea what it is about
I RARELY don't finish a movie after I've started watching it but this movie bored me to tears. I sat through 30min of this movie and absolutely nothing happened. Blue kitty cat goes to school, blue kitty cat goes to get milk, blue kitty cat gets on a train, blue and pink kitty cat go exploring. I couldn't take it any more. The images are beautiful and I'm sure this movie had some sort of deep message but it's just way too boring. I took the DVD out and put in Akira.