Envisioning a dystopian future the place people inch nearer to immortality whereas shedding the power to procreate, Takahide Hori’s stop-motion journey journeys by a dark, dilapidated universe crammed with exquisitely unknown creatures. Contemplating that the movie is usually a one-man operation – Hori pores over almost each technical side himself – the worldbuilding particulars are merely extraordinary, bringing to thoughts the nightmarish virtuosity of Phil Tippett’s Mad God.
In search of an answer to a diminishing inhabitants, a human scientist plunges into the subterranean domains inhabited by the Magarins, mutants whose labour powers the operating of town above. After an accident obliterates his bodily kind, the thoughts of our wandering protagonist is transferred right into a succession of mechanical guises, blurring the distinction between his humanity and the clone staff.
Existential quandaries apart, the otherworldly magic of Junk Head is visible slightly than plot-based. Stacked with towering heaps of steel scraps, infinite staircases and dirty corridors that result in a bottomless pit, the painstakingly imagined artwork route conjures the expressionist spirit of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, whereas the infernal monsters that canine the hero’s each step are particularly placing of their carcass-like designs, a Francis Bacon triptych coming to terrifying life.
The blood-splattered sequences the place the grotesque predators gnaw on their hapless victims are punctuated with moments of levity, friendship and jokes; some would possibly discover this tonally jarring and crude. Junk Head additionally leaves many story threads unfinished, meant as it’s as the primary instalment in a sequence. Nonetheless, the astonishing stage of workmanship and creativity trumps any minor shortcomings. Positive to ship shockwaves up your backbone, this triumph of animation calls for to be seen on a giant display screen.
