People are voting emotionally.

Absolutely Fantastic

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

I simply cannot understand how so many people can dislike "A Tree of Palme". Allow me to explain.For one, people complain that the pacing is too slow. Get over it. Some films happen to have slow pacing, and the pacing in "A Tree of Palme" served the plot excellently and with good taste. I can't imagine "A Tree of Palme" being any better with faster pacing; the pacing allowed it to have a "slice of life" feel, while at the same time immersing you in an alien world and a worthy, action-packed adventure.Furthermore, I hardly think the plot is convoluted as so many suggest. I had no trouble following any aspect of the story. I'll admit that there are many anime films out there with plots that run circles around my head, but this wasn't one of them. It all made perfect sense to me -- symbolism and all. Perhaps I'm either insane or smarter than most. I don't know. All I know was that I truly enjoyed the plot and had no issues with it.I also very much liked all the characters. That's a rare pleasure I get from movies these days, especially given my extremely jaded nature. With a combination of good writing, great cinematography, and great music, I was able to feel everything the characters felt; when they were happy, so was I; when they were sad, so too did sadness well up from within me. Only the best films can achieve such a goal (should it even *be* a goal, given most of today's trash films).And then there is the pure artistry in virtually every shot of the film. My god, "A Tree of Palme" is beautiful -- an artistic triumph in every sense. Immersion is practically guaranteed. And the CG? Perfectly integrated. Absolutely perfect. I never felt as if I was looking at CG -- the gorgeous cinematography and haunting music saw to that. It also helped that the modern, intricate CG was sparingly used, unlike so many of today's films. The CG was as CG *should* be.In the end, "A Tree of Palme" is an amazing film and simply doesn't deserve the terrible wrap so many people levy upon it. It reminds me so much of the early days of film, when special effects weren't everything and pacing was much slower. If you're a fan of film, you owe it to yourself to see "A Tree of Palme".

The teasers for Tree of Palme try to pass it off as a sort of allegory for a fairy tale with actual meaning, then immediately start raving about the animation. I should have known what that meant.The main character, Palme, is a good example of the whole movie's problem. One minute, Palme is a humble hero in search of himself, the next a violent psycho with an unhealthy fixation on a girl he once took care of.Like all of the characters in the movie, Palme is poorly defined. You do not bond with the characters at all, although Shatta has acquired a couple of fan girls. It seems that the writer was more interested in cramming all the drama and complexity he could into this movie than actually exploring his characters' motivations and personalities.New, useless story lines were being introduced in the last fifteen minutes of the movie. The writer seriously needed to streamline his story. Perhaps he was trying to be epic, but it was simply too much information for a two-hour movie. However I can't help but wonder if a plot with so many dimensions and characters would have been better suited for a TV series or graphic novel.In the last five minutes of the movie, I simply could not endure the sheer lack of quality any longer and began laughing at how contrived the characters, the relationships, and the whole plot was. I touched my companion and he started cracking up too, as did a young man seated behind us. We tried so hard to control ourselves, but we simply could not take the terrible quality of this movie.On the bright side, the animation is incredible and viewers will find themselves admiring the lush backgrounds and charming character designs. The animation almost guides you; when you don't care about the characters, it tells you how to feel.

This is one of the best looking anime features I've run across. The animation is glorious, the design and the world created are rich in images and wonders to see. The trouble is that the movie is a snail paced retelling of Pinocchio that even at two hours and sixteen minutes doesn't tell the whole story, there are gaps between sequences that leave you puzzling how we got from A to B. The film is suppose to be a very personal project by the director who worked on it for ten years, but there is such a thing as being too close to a project and in this case he was much too close. I can see how the lack of complete explanation might appeal to some people but for me it was more bewildering than intriguing, the film didn't make a lot of sense and took forever not making it. (Visuals are a ten out of ten, the rest is up to you, I give it a five over all simply because the visuals are so fantastic it makes watching it interesting at least for a majority of it)

I saw this movie two weeks ago at the "festival des nouvelles images du Japon" in Paris. Though i wasn't expecting much from it, i have to say i've been disappointed just like many people in the audience... if i wanted to sum up how i felt, i'd say i've been comparing it to princess mononoke and nausicaa from the beginning to the end. Of course it's silly. But i couldn't help it. The stories are quite different, but the worlds pictured are very much alike. And from this point of view, "a tree of palme" definitely can't stand the comparison with Miyazaki's masterworks. Even if it's quite good technically, boredom remains... in the end its complete lack of originality makes me advise you not to care to watch it. I rated it 2 out of 10 (a bit harsh, i guess it deserves 3 or 4)