EX-RENTAL REVIEWS: A TREE OF PALME by Sami Sadek

 Not a 90's Anime however this needs to be brought to attention. What would you get if you took Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio and set it in a Post Apocalyptic setting and made an Anime out of it, basically this except the problems with this movie isn't the very creative idea. It's the way the story is told alongside this idea and how much opportunity gets wasted and the flaws to this project really stand out in a terrible way. This movie has been something I have watched more than once recently and one I have tried to analyze in more detail and just to see how much of this really doesn't work and much alot of it does.

The premise of this revolves around a puppet called Palme who was created from the wood of a sacred tree, after the death of the woman named Xian who cared for Palme he embarks on a quest to deliever the Egg of Touto safely to the land below of Tamas. Along the way Palme meets a girl named Popo who bares a similar resemblance to Xian and after meeting up with many weird but unique looking characters the story then ventures on Palme's quest to become Human.

This movie is both a pain/a joy to sit through because on a technical level the production on this movie is extremely high and has alot to show for it in terms of it's character design and it's setting. However on the other the film suffers from a rather complicated plot with
characters that range from being not all that memorable to having too much change that makes them hard to really root or care for, accompanied by uneven pacing that you really have to wonder if the plot went anywhere else

except to the main point this movie was trying to get across.

This movie is both a pain/a joy to sit through because on a technical level the production on this movie is extremely high and has alot to show for it in terms of it's character design and it's setting. However on the other the film suffers from a rather complicated plot with characters that range from being not all that memorable to having too much change that makes them hard to really root or care for, accompanied by uneven pacing that you really have to wonder if the plot went anywhere else except to the main point this movie was trying to get across.

The characters, whilst a few stood out as being interesting they weren't really anything memorable and had very little to contribute to the story but the biggest flaw is really the main protagonist; Palme. When you first see Palme after the death of his carer he falls into a catatonic and withdrawn state which you would instantly feel some pity for because he has lost something rather close to him, however once he meets Popo Palme becomes more desperate and obsessed throughout a portion of the film, which sadly the makes the character cold, brutal, and incredibly unlikable, not to mention a tiny bit psychotic when he does something quite by accident without knowing it would cause great harm. So the leading character is somewhat problematic and with an end result for him that really just leaves you feeling unfulfilled.

There are some positives however.
The setting and the world is beautifully realized, Takashi Nakamura (Akira, The Hakkenden, Robot Carnival, Peter Pan No Boken etc) managed to do such an amazing job with this movie, everything about this feels like a piece of art done by Jean "Moebius" Giraud where you could clearly see some of the mythology that is mentioned in this story

presented very well. The landscapes and the ruined cities and architecture are very bold show a much deeper history that this dystopian world offers. Partially because 90% of this movie was all colored and drawn by hand, so the dated 90's feel has a strong presence in this movie. The character designs which have a very angular but also very simplistic illustrative look (which is what Nakamura is known for) have an importance with making the characters look either very surreal or as human as they could possibly be with a few facial alterations to make the characters look interesting.

 The score by Takashi Harada really deserves more attention as it's such a beautifully composed and well layered score that is very reminiscent to the music of the late Elmer Bernstein, it ranges from being very whimsical and uplifting and adventurous to being moody, brooding and then grim. If there was one reason to watch this movie it's the score as it's vastly underrated.

The English dub of this provided by the now defunct ADV films is a good listen, names like Chris Patton, Monica Rial, Jessica Boone, Chris Ayres etc have something to offer which despite the characters having memorability at least try to make them appeal. Kira Vincent Davis who plays Palme is a mixed bag, she plays the character both very quietly and very calmly and then eventually very over the top to descending into screaming frantically which feels somewhat like a turnoff for the character to go to. Kira can clearly play young boys very well but it seems here it felt as though her performance was overdone by the way the character was written-then translated.

So overall, A Tree of Palme sadly while the idea is very well represented, it suffers from trundling pacing along with complicated writing and with characters that are nothing more than mixed bags. It's a style over substance movie that had nothing but so many missed opportunities that while it's trying to be as powerful, emotional and thought-provoking it falls halfway when trying to achieve what it sets out to do. I feel this movie tried too hard.

I recommend it for being an incredibly underrated, so-so film.

Sami Sadek is a lifelong Transformers and Anime fan, and can often be found propping up bars or appearing in the background of Auto Assembly vids. He has also talks on Youtube, Tumbls on Tumblr and doodles on Deviantart. He has never had a swordfight atop a church whilst a crow watches. Honest.