Part of Holiday Classics.
Sun, Dec 18 at 2:20pm: Introduction from local animator Nathan Morrow | BUY TICKETS
Three homeless people — Gin, an alcoholic former professional bicycle racer; Hana, a former drag queen; and Miyuki, a run-away young girl — live together in Tokyo’s Shinjuku neighborhood. On Christmas Eve, the three discover a baby girl at a garbage dump. They head for the brighter parts of the city, where people are enjoying the holiday festivities, to look for the baby’s parents. While the three search for the parents, uncanny luck results in their meeting other people and their adventures with the baby continue. Will the baby lead these three protagonists to their destiny?
Anime maestro Satoshi Kon’s humanistic re-retelling of the story of the Three Wise Men owes as much to John Ford’s 3 GODFATHERS as it does to the original Biblical narrative.
“...Though you may sometimes wish you could stop the projector and examine each frame as you would a painting, the shaggy-dog story has its own antic, slightly gooey charm. In a live-action film, the teary talk of angels, Christmas miracles and unfulfilled parental dreams might be hard to take, but Mr. Kon's cool, comic-book style defuses the sentimental excess. Instead, the characters, with their frozen, emphatic expressions and exaggerated voices, take on an appealing eccentricity, and by the time those buildings start dancing, you will be sorry to see them go.” —A.O. Scott, New York Times “...A beautiful, hilarious movie and one that cemented Satoshi Kon as a visionary and narrative master.” —Kyle Anderson, Nerdist “Satoshi Kon's work always aims high. If Hayao Miyazaki is Japanese animation's great mythmaker, Kon, one might say, is its radical psychotherapist.” –John Powers, NPR
