The Movie

Currently snuggled in at #13 in my list of favorite movies of all time is David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, and I will argue in favor of that particular film's brilliance until the end of time. But in any discussion of the film's merits and the reasons for its inclusion on a list as respected and erudite as my own, the following argument is a statistical inevitability: "What?!That movie was bullcrap. The only reason the pseudo-intellectual elite proclaim it to be genius is because they don't understand it, and Lynch is laughing at them all the way to the bank. I mean, it's no Pirates of the Caribbean!"

For sure. Still, that particular line of reason fascinates me for endless reasons, not the least of which being attributed to the fact that MD is probably Lynch's most accessible film since Blue Velvet. But that is a cosmic haiku for another eon, and in the meantime we probably want to know what the hell this has to do with Malice@Doll, a gloriously weird anime from the minds of writer Chiaki Konaka and director Keitarou Motonaga.

Malice@Doll deals with the story of Malice, a robot apparently programmed for sexual activity. Somehow all of the humans are gone from her futuristic world, yet she still seems to be functional and looking for clientele. When visiting a repair droid for her usual servicing, she is instead accosted by an unfamiliar robot, which systematically molests her with tentacles and metallic tendrils. She awakens, only to find herself fully humanoid and organic, liberated from her motorized shell. Like some post-modern pre-op Pinocchio, she has discovered that with her kiss she can transmute other robots into full-formed humanoid beings. They call the kiss "love", a transmittable disease which alters the flesh into a new state, their being re-registered in quanta. Malice's kiss, seemingly a gift, is a Pandora's Box which introduces pain, death, and despair into the cybernetic personae. What seems like beauty is accursed, and Malice attempts at reversion result in an ending both obtuse and circuitous.

Malice@Doll is a many times a painfully obvious metaphor and meditation on lust, misplaced love, youthful indiscretion, dreams and their reflection/redirection of reality, AIDS, sexual confusion and gender identity. One could even make the case that the entire film is a PSA stressing the importance and necessity of sexual education. The robots are childlike, innocent, confused, and unaware of there ever-morphing essences, immersing themselves in playful abandon within the beauty of the "kiss", blissfully ignorant of its lethal nature on their forms.

There wasn't a scintilla of emotional connection between myself and this 110-minute surrealistic sci-fi feast of bright colors, oily, grimy corridors, robotic tentacles and copious amounts of sexy robot do-goodery. That's not to say that I didn't gleam a few themes and a general vibe every here and there, and, for the most part, I liked Malice@Doll. In fact, I found it to be an ambitious and compelling piece of visionary filmmaking. Compared to the tedious and overwrought Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Malice@Doll is practically a masterpiece. I marveled at the CG animation, how it approximated the herky-jery rhythms of stop-motion animation to give the film an even greater sense of veracity. It's not the smooth, streamlined CGI you've seen in dozens of big-budget features in the past. This is raw, visceral, and immediate, hearkening to the great European animation of the 60s and 70s. The story itself is the film's weakest element; while it starts strong and engagingly, it devolves into a melange of bizarre imagery, plot obfuscations, and emotional expressions that dally in Dali and paint themselves into an abstract portait which... well, quite frankly, I just didn't get. Malice@Doll is geared towards an audience that will return and revisit this tale many times, combing for clues and digging for a deeper meaning.

Video:

Malice@Doll is presented in a full-frame aspect ratio of 1.33:1. The resulting video transfer is quite pleasing and rather vibrant and engaging. Colors are eye-poppingly vibrant, with bright pinks, deep reds and blues, and deep blacks. Contrasts are spot-on, demonstrating excellent range and depth. Grain structure is evenly delineated throughout the transfer. Image detail is the only real weak point. While the picture isn't overly soft, it's not quite as sharp as it should be. Nonetheless, this is a fine looking transfer.

Audio: