I am allowing myself to slowly ease myself back in to watching and writing movies. This means that I will be putting up posts every few days as I feel up to it for at least as long as I am in recovery. What it apparently does not mean is that I will be choosing any easier material for my viewings.

No.7 Cherry Lane (2019, Dir. Yonfan)

When Ziming (Alex Tak-Shun Lam) starts proclaiming the values of reading Proust to Mrs. Yu (Sylvia Chang) the preceding 30 minutes come into full context. Director Yonfan turns the animated medium on its head by showing all movements in painfully slow detail as opposed to the more frantic pace for which his contemporaries use the medium. This plodding pace creates a bit of an uncanny valley, but as the meditative nature of the film becomes more apparent, the lethargic character movements become a selling point rather than a hinderance.

While the overall meditative feel of the film may be No7. Cherry Lane’s biggest success, the film’s story is less successful. Much of the film centers around a love triangle between Ziming, Mrs. Yu, and her daughter Meiling (Wei Zhao). This triangle deprives Ziming of any sympathy from the audience as he flirts with narcissistic behavior. What is on the screen becomes too distracting and takes away from mood piece the film otherwise excelled at.