Fantascope ~Tylostoma~ (2006)

A classical myth (with all that entails) of love, lust, death, and rebirth told through an experimental combination of live action, flowing watercolours, wispy sketches, and (admittedly awkward) digital effects all in sombre greyscale. Amano deftly weaves the innocent and the grotesque, the vast and the particular into one loop. However, it feels too caught up in its own aesthetic to express anything other than its aesthetic. I was expecting something more affecting or thought-provoking—traveller/prisoner who comes down to earth every seven centuries is prime soil to grow mid-century magical-realist political allegory—and what I ended up feeling and thinking was “this is pretty beautiful, huh”.