Sadly Over-hyped

i must have seen a different film!!

The acting in this movie is really good.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Spirit and Chaos is an artistic biopic of Miyazawa Kenji, a Japanese poet and writer who was active in the early 20th century. The film captures and interprets his artistic method ('sketching' poems), his inspiration (the spirit of nature and its fantastic beauty) and his struggles to accept a harsh reality in the face of his idealist imagination.The film integrated excerpts of Miyazawa's poems into the plot beautifully. His relationships with his students was powerful, especially in one scene where he offers everything he has to a student who has just been caught stealing materials from the classroom. Miyazawa's selfless compassion for the farmers in his village, his sister and other unfortunate people can serve as a lesson to us all. Furthermore, Miyazawa's devotion to science was also nicely portrayed. In a time when Western ideas were still met with skepticism, especially in provincial towns like the one where Miyazawa grew up, he understands its usefulness in helping his fellow villagers and is inspired by its elegance. The way the film presented moments of artistic passion and disappointment in the writer were truly intense and well interpreted.I felt that the CGI integrated into the film, while groundbreaking an innovative, clashed with the more organic animation. It could be argued that this was intentional to represent conflict within the main character, but I found it rather unaesthetic. I also wish that the film had discussed Miyazawa's Buddhist influence, but it worked fine without it. I though this film was very well done. I give it a 9/10, with the one point being deducted for the CGI. Otherwise the animation, plot and dialog were all wonderful and heartfelt. I haven't seen any other films by Kawamori Shoji, but after seeing this one I will be sure to give them a chance.

Talk about being boring!I got this expecting a fascinating insight into the life of the man who wrote the mythical Night on the Galactic Railroad. I expected to see crazy stories and hijinks of an eccentric man and to discover his inspirations for such bizarre material. Boy, was I wrong.Spring and Chaos is mostly boring with only sporadic moments of innovative animation. It's certainly nothing to write home about and nowhere near as good as NOTGR which is something that I suggest you watch instead. Leave this bore alone. If you absolutely MUST see then either rent it or find it somewhere cheap. Do not pay top dollar.

Spring and Chaos is an astonishing movie for three reasons. The first one is the apparent antagonism between the form and the substance, a poetry writer biography in a "funny animal" story such as The Aristocats... The second one is the gap between a commercial manga cartoon style and a non figurative painting style with strobe light effect editing, rough draft cartoon sequences and even word's keying ! Last but not least is the strength of the poetical atmosphere that proceeds from all these apparent discrepancies thanks to a subtle script, a perfectly chiseled dialogue and a strong screen presence of main characters.

I'll make this brief. This was a joy to watch. It may or may not have been more effective if the characters had resembled their real life counterparts, but aside from this minor observation I found the fantasy animal characters to be most enjoyable. The visuals were most stunning except for the second-rate CG scenes, which could have been left out. I dislike computer generated animation anyways, it defeats the purpose of a biopic such as this one. Watch it, you will appreciate it too!