Adapted from a Rakugo play from what would appear like ancient times, Koji Yamamura's 2002 tour de force of allegorical dungeoneering into the murkiest depths of the ailing human psyche is nothing short of poetic. The way he weaves sometimes trustworthy, sometimes unreliable visual correlation with the written form enthuses, all while viewers are left by their lonesome to decode what's really to be taken as fact within the mental strain of the character's descent into maddening despair. One major takeaway would be the integration of motifs as the crux of all chaos that is seen to its causal endpoint on the artifice of destiny.Every swath of misfortune that befalls the man with the cherry tree growing from his bald head is caused by his indignation to resign and uproot it before tertiary problems begin to take root (giggles) and drive him into a corner. The little people frolicking by the "tree" on his head? They seem unfazed by what self-inflicted mockery he has to put up with on a daily basis, and as if it couldn't get any worse for him, they act out every destructive impulse known to humankind on his shrivelling epidermal "zenshin taitsu", if only out of a complete disregard for the host on which they thrive. They're parasites, and this man refuses to do a thing about it. Why wouldn't he cut down the cherry tree? Why did he think it wise to chew on a cherry blossom seed which fruit came from an unknown place, where nutrients in the soil beneath were likely scarce? And above all, why was the man so god-damned stingy?

All of these we don't get a concrete answer to. But what we do get in return however, coalesces into something beyond even our wildest imaginations. Something beyond even my own imagination.

What a bloody masterpiece by Yamamura-sensei this turned out to be. Thoroughly recommended. Through and through.