Belladonna of Sadness (1973)
30 May 2022
I saw this expiring on Amazon Prime so I thought I'd give it a watch. The short runtime of 86m was also appealing. First a warning though - this is a very graphic film that many, many folks would be uncomfortable with. It's 18+ on Prime with content warnings for Alcohol use, foul language, nudity, sexual content, violence.
With that aside, this was an interesting film. It has a jazz soundtrack that I really like (link to it is through the YouTube Music Link), and the watercolors and varying styles are intriguing, ranging from the vibrantly linear psychadelic romantic scenes, to raw Clyfford Still dramatic scenes. The style reminds me of the more offbeat lower-budget animation that came out elsewhere around the same time (like Bakshi films), though this film was a commercial failure that factored into its production studio going bankrupt later that year.
The content is unsettling, and also kinda repetitive. I think some of it's intentional for the shock factor, but I don't think it ages well on account of it. If you are ok with seeing something weird, depressing, and uncomfortably graphic, it may be worth seeing once. 7/10
