LouHomey From my favorite movies..

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Francene Odetta It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

MissSimonetta If you've never watched the TV series Revolutionary Girl Utena, then this movie will not make one lick of sense. The plot line is so full of abstractions and references to the original series that it will no doubt be incomprehensible to anyone unfamiliar with any of it, who will only take away the breathtaking animation and music once the credits crawl by.For those who have seen and loved the TV series, then this is an interesting, but not essential, work. It's an alternate, even more dreamlike version of the original show's story, with an older-looking Utena and Anthy. There is more of an examination of Utena's relationship with Touga and Utena and Anthy's implied romance is made outright explicit.Overall, an interesting and visually beautiful film, but I'd only recommend it to fans of the series.

icecold-2 I bought the Shôjo kakumei Utena movie recently and this is a very surreal tale that takes place in a fantasy world (unlike the series, which takes place in Japan). The director gives us beautiful scenic artwork along with a new, more beautiful look (than the school-girl-with-librarian-hair) for Anthy. The movie does take on more lesbian overtones than the series, which was based on friendship. Most people don't understand what happened with Touga/Shiori. Utena and Shiori both were haunted by the dead (which is why Shiori and Utena could see Touga, yet Miki and Juri couldn't). The whole transformation with Shiori was to symbolize Shiori's malicious feelings growing as Touga explained his childhood when he was raped and beaten. The ending is what kills most people, but let me explain: The director said that Utena and Anthy would sacrifice everything (including their clothes, which is explained at the end when they enter the barren, apocalyptic modern world) Basically, this is story about teenage hood. They wanted to leave their crazy-and-surreal dream world and come to reality. The world is really a harsh place and that you must make sacrifices to truly grow up. Good symbolic drama, nice score. 9/10

General_Changs_eyepatch Consider yourself warned that this movie operates on the assumption that viewers are familiar with the TV series. If you aren't already aware of the relationships between the characters (as I'm not) you're outta luck, because very little of it is explained here. And from what I've heard, things are a bit murky even then.What makes this movie great is that it really doesn't matter. Utena is a visual smorgasborg--the backgrounds alone warrant it a high rating, impossibly lush and frequently reminiscent of art nouveau. The characters are equally wonderfully drawn. Visually, it's brilliant; the floating castle that seems to constantly rearrange itself is an astonishing feat of fantastical architecture. All in all I'd have to say this is the most gorgeous animation I've ever seen. As for the plot...I've seen this three times now and still don't entirely get it. I have some vague theories about what's going on and why, but without the series' background I can't verify anything. The movie operates on a very surreal, symbolic level--and it's full of the eccentricities of anime, as well (not that that's a bad thing, just different--a giant car wash machine that rises out of a field of roses figures prominently in a later scene). If you go into this expecting cut-and-dry western cinema (doubtful, as by and large I expect only anime junkies would even hear of it), you're up the creek without a paddle. Even granted the contextual uncertainty, though, there is clearly a resolution. What it means is certainly debatable, but the point is that there IS a narrative here discernible in the end, if that actually matters. In this case, I don't think it does. The movie exists in its own world and can't be expected to always adhere to our rules.Utena is awe-inspiring in its visual beauty and imagination. As a would-be fantasy writer myself I found my mind spinning off on dozens of tangents after watching it. And for one work of art to inspire another to create is perhaps the highest recommendation there is.

galensaysyes Is there a rule that feature versions of anime series have to be incomprehensible? This one plays almost like an outtake reel, and at first I thought the DVD player had scrambled the chapters. It's even more obscure than A Girl in Gaea. I enjoyed the series a lot, but was disappointed in the plainness of its art. I'd always thought that it deserved something more ornate. And here it's got it, all right: the movie looks like surrealistic French comics. However, the plot is compressed, like the Reader's Digest version of "Gone with the Wind" as imagined by Mad magazine ("Fiddle-de-dee!" said Scarlett. Bang! "Thank God that bloody war is over"). The movie can't seem to keep its mind on its subject. A lot of it is showing off by the animators, the characters and plot elements are poorly introduced, and most of them are dropped before the end. The big secret that Anthy is keeping, or half-keeping, is lost. I also missed the ritual of the Absolute Destiny Apocalypse. And I thought it was a big mistake was to make the entire setting phantasmagoric; that just makes it more difficult to keep the meanings in focus. And I didn't understand what the movie was doing with Utena. I've seen the manga, and there she seemed to be the same character as in the series; here I didn't get her at all, either in the writing or in the drawing, and I didn't much like the way they drew her in any case. I also didn't like the overt sexuality. The story had more meaning, as well as more appeal, when this was kept ambiguous. But what a great movie this could have been!