Movies I Like

Lost in Translation captivates with its sense of longing. Bob, an actor going through a midlife crisis, and Charlotte, the young, neglected wife of a successful photographer, meet by chance in the middle of Tokyo. They decide to paint the town red together. In doing so, they discover the little secrets behind the huge metropolis and its multifaceted inhabitants. The film is beautiful, and for me personally, the fact that it is set in Tokyo, where the two lonely souls find themselves, was of course a decisive factor.

Battle Royale confronts self-doubt. Due to a government measure, a Japanese problem school class finds itself on an evacuated island. Their mission: to kill each other with pans and machine guns within three days. If more than one survives the cheerfully announced and even televised on Japanese television but cruel game until the end of the deadline, everyone dies. Battle Royale is probably one of the most brutal films ever made and is also psychologically disturbing: Would you kill your best friends just to survive?

Princess Mononoke oscillates between war and love. In 16th-century Japan, a young warrior is cursed by an angry wild boar, causing him to be consumed from within. He leaves his home village to find the cause and the antidote far away, and encounters the young San, who was raised by wolves. Soon, Ashitaka finds himself in the middle of a nerve-wracking war between humans and nature, and he must quickly decide which side he is on. Princess Mononoke was one of the first major anime films I saw, which I first encountered at AniMagiC 1999 in Koblenz. I was immediately fascinated and moved by the grandiose adaptation of the story, the bombastic music, and the huge, beautiful images. I was particularly taken with the cute little forest spirits, the Kodamas, who were always running around shaking their heads.