Franz Kafka was once a German author, famous for his downright depressing stories. I’ve only read one work of his (about a salaryman, turning into a huge beetle and then dying from loneliness), but I can fully understand why he got that reputation. A Country Doctor is the interpretation of director Koji Yamamura, the director of Atama Yama on one of the guy’s short stories.
I think it’s already apparent through the screenshots, but the director went for a surreal approach with this 20-minute long movie. The character-designs are constantly warping into strange shapes, and the entire movie is chock-full of symbolism about the old country doctor that plays the main character in this story. You might need a second viewing in order to fully understand what’s going on.
Overall, I liked a country doctor. It’s a great short horror-ish story, but I do think that the director went a bit too overboard with his visual effects. The warped character-designs only distract from what’s really important in the movie, and the plot doesn’t flow as smoothly as you’d like at times. It’s just like Shoji Kawamura’s Spring and Chaos: you want to give a classic writer too much credit and go overboard with the style so that the style actually works against it a bit.
Nevertheless, the art style does look great and apart from a few humps and bumps along the way, the story is well-told for such a short time of 20 minutes and it gives a good look inside the mind of the titular country doctor. A country Doctor is obviously not for everyone (stay FAR away if you hate depressing stories), but if you’re looking for something surreal and have half an hour to burn, then why not give it a chance?
| Storytelling: | 8/10 |
| Characters: | 8/10 |
| Production-Values: | 8/10 |
| Setting: | 8/10 |
i really think this is worth the watch and i will watch it mostly because we get to see how a japanese director managed to adapt a short story written by the brilliant Kafka
it should be interesting to watch
Woah!
I’ll try and take a look into this. Kafka was a brilliant writer.
I believe that was Metamorphasis with the story of the man who turns into a giant cockroach. Pretty depressing stuff, as I recall (read it waaaaay back in high school), as everyone around the guy (including family) were actually happy and better off that he was dead at the end of the story.
This anime looks pretty surreal. I don’t mind depressing as long as it’s done right (I liked Jin-Roh for that reason; Grave of the Fireflies as well though to a lesser extent for reasons I won’t go into). I’ll give this one a shot.
This was such an amazing production.
I can’t sleep at nights, but hey it was worth it.