Anime film tells tale of ecological disaster
"Sky Blue" (U.S. title; the IMDB lists it as "Wonderful Days") is a visual delight that mixes 3D computer graphics, 2D animation, and, I'm pretty sure, live action in places. For instance, there is a beautifully rendered scene of rain splashing on the ground that was particularly impressive if it was the result of computer graphics, but I couldn't figure out why someone would go to the enormous expense of animating such a shot when they could simply film water falling and enhance it in the computer. The end credits list several matte painters, and barring live action shots, I can't figure out what those would be for. Made in South Korea, this film is an impressive reminder that the movie industry's technological revolution is not just coming from Hollywood.
Sky Blue features many stunningly beautiful images.
As stated, the film is visually intriguing, the animation is smooth and surprisingly not as disjointed as it might have been given its mix of styles. The soundtrack gets kudos as well; the film sounds as good as it looks. Technically, this is a well-made, thoughtfully crafted film on every level.
Its story, however, doesn't live up to the virtuosity of its technique. Based around an intriguing concept, it doesn't follow those ideas through, and it relies on stock generalizations to do most of the work in fleshing out its characters. There's the big tough guy, he of the bulging muscles; the thin, cynical villain, he of the sneering lip; there's the tough but sensitive emotionally-wounded hero, he of the adorably tousled hair; etc.
Set in the year 2142, Earth's ecology is in almost total collapse. The last remnants of the technological elite have fled to a giant city called Ecoban which is actually a genetically modified organism. They live in a giant tree, if you will. Like all organisms, the tree must feed, and the remaining humans, left in the rubble of the old world, are forced to mine the carbon compound upon which Ecoban feeds.
Determining that Ecoban and the mining are continuing to destroy the planet, the scientist who created Ecoban determines to release its energy in the hope that it can cleanse the atmosphere.
Shua, he of the tousled hair, joins forces with the scientist, but in order to accomplish his mission, he must fight his childhood sweetheart, Jay, the resourceful young woman who is in charge of Ecoban's security.
That's a good premise for a story, but many gaps are left in the telling. First: Ecoban is a giant living organism, with people living inside of it!!!! That idea is intrinsically interesting and, I think, also very, very creepy. Imagine what David Lynch could have done with the idea; what weird kind of symbiosis might he have dreamed up? Does the city sustain us, or do we sustain the city?
The metaphors fairly scream for exploration. The visual metaphors alone could be brilliant: humans infesting the body of the city, how does the city regenerate? Are the humans good caretakers of the city — like worker ants shoring it up where it is weak? They live in the world's largest living organism, yet other than telling us that, virtually nothing else is done with the idea.
There are also several confusing dead patches in the narrative that could be explained by something lost in translation between the Korean and English language version. For me, too, it didn't help that Shua and Jay are both roughly the same characters both in physical body type (slender and slightly androgynous) and tousled hair; several times in the film, when the characters were in a long shot and zooming along on a motorcycle, I confused one for the other and so was constantly having to rework the storyline in my head: "I thought it was Jay who rescued the kid, but now the kid is riding on the bike with Shua! What's going on?"
There were also a few places where the story proceeds as if the filmmakers are using it to storyboard an accompanying video game, but that is perhaps nitpicking.
Overall, "Sky Blue" is impressive, and I found the ending to be moving and wondrous. For fans of anime, this should be more than a worthy use of your time.