Haruneko

With this abstract, elusive and above all highly musical fever dream, debuting director Hokimoto Sora makes a valiant play for the accolade ‘weirdest film of the year’. The action takes place in a café run by The Manager, helped by an elderly woman and a boy called Haru. The café is a refuge for everyone who wants to die: young and old, good and bad. The Manager drives these people to a misty place deep in the woods, where they gradually disappear and are transformed into sound waves.
Who exactly these people are is left largely to our imagination, although brief bursts from their pasts are shown during a strange magic lantern show, which is always concluded by a musical act – including a children’s choir and pop band wearing white cat masks. Because, as the film decrees: “All that is left for us is to sing and dance.”

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