Cleopatra: Queen of Sex

I haven't read most of Tezuka's manga, but as far as anime is concerned, he sure isn't very good. He seemed to lack some basic discernment, much like Tomino does for example, and littered his shit with unbecoming tonal shifts and jokes that have no place and exist merely cause he thought it would be funny. When reading some of his titles, it is common to have the flow interrupted by some visual gag and I wondered just why it was there to begin with. Cleopatra is a disaster in most senses, starting with its premise that sounds like one which would be promptly refusedby any funder with more than two brain cells. The movie goes and goes and as you realize it's absolutely all over the place a thought arises: why does this exist? There aren't bad jokes interrupting a relatively thoughtful story... there is no thoughtful story and the whole thing is the bad joke. It's a wholly half-assed product made out of toying with history without the quality control, tonal consistency, and self-awareness required for it to be minimally interesting to watch. Tezuka's self-indulgence can seem nearly solipsist at times, but sometimes that means utter boredom for the audience as absolutely nothing matters if it's just a piece of incoherent mess with bits and pieces of cultural and historical references. The Animerama project consists of two ill-conceived pieces of shit followed by one cleverly crafted arthouse masterpiece. Guess which one Tezuka did not work on? You're right on the money.

This movie really is a big, hot mess. It's all over the place, and never seems to really figure out what kind of movie it wants to be. This is the second in the triumvirate of movies from Mushi Productions, coming on the heels of the more successful (and eminently more watchable) 1001 Nights. It falls flat on its face at the very start, opening with a ten-minute futuristic sequence, where three agents are sent to the past (Cleopatra's time) to find out the secret of the "Cleopatra Plan", which aliens are trying to use toconquer future Earth. Borderline unwatchable, as it's live-action people with poorly animated heads painted on top. And outside of about thee minutes at the end, and a handful of minor references to this little envelope of an idea in the middle of the film, it's pretty much meaningless. Is it a sex show? Not really, there are some sex scenes, and lots of casual nudity, but it's more in the category of raunch than titillation. This was billed (when released in English) as an X-rated sexual romp, but it was so tame that many moviegoers asked for their money back. Is it a comedy? Well, that's closer to the mark, as many of the great characters (like Ptolemy) are played for laughs. More like punctuated satire that falls flat in most cases. A little bit of slapstick, and a little bit of farce. Is it a historical drama? Well, it does very (and I mean very) loosely follow the life of Cleopatra and Caesar and Alexander and Octavian. But, with a far too liberal dose of creative license to even make the claim of historical accuracy in any form. And many times they throw in completely unrelated (and unnecessary bits), either for humor or for variety. Like a handgun during the gladiator scene. Or (literally) the Ides of March acted out in the form of a Noh drama. Or, for some reason, two seconds of Astro Boy. Is it an experimental piece? Not as much as the earlier 1001 Nights, which really played around with formats quite a bit. But they definitely do delve at times into experimental animation techniques, either because they want to show off, or because they think it might be 'interesting'. For the most part, though, it's just another bit of drudge to endure. While this may be an interesting piece of historical animation, that by no means makes it "good". Or, for that matter, worth watching. And unless you are a Tezuka completist, or really into the history of anime, you should give it a pass.

Cleopatra is a difficult work to talk about and with, because it's essentially a very long and occasionally meaningless sex pervert movie (or, to put it more professionally, an erotic arthouse film) that nonetheless has a lot of historical and artistic interest. The story and characters both effectively exist only as vessels for the artistic intent that MushiPro wanted to convey, which careens between erotic, comedic, genuinely tragic, and completely abstract. It's a long, long movie with very poor pacing that can be difficult to sit through if you're not in the right mindset, especially since most of the plot is flat and it occasionallyborders on being an unintelligible excuse for sex scenes that register more as outrageous or experimental rather than actually arousing in any measure. The best parts of the movie are all in the technical aspects, from its bizarre and bewildering animation- it opens on a camera panning down a cardboard city and has an entire section with human actors that have painted on, animated heads- to its sound design. This movie effectively exists just for the people at MushiPro to do whatever they want with some vague outlines of premise attached to it. The parade of art styles and the Kabuki portrayal of Julius Caesar's death are probably my favorite sections of the film; it also pulls forward with bitingly satirical veiled political references at times, drawing parallels between Rome and the United States, Japan and Egypt. Unfortunately even though it has a lot of artistic positives, the incredibly slow and tedious pacing along with the nonsense plot combine into a deadly sort of toxin that makes this film inimical to genuine enjoyment. It's very much a product of its era, and I don't think modern anime fans with mainstream sensibilities would get much out of it rather than disgust; even people who enjoy 'animator's anime', where the point is allowing the people at the studio to experiment and have fun rather than create a streamlined product, would probably have difficulty digesting this one- God knows I did. Objectively, I would recommend this if you're a history nut on a 70s film binge and smoke a lot of weed, and have about three or four friends of that exact ken. It's also worth watching if you're researching MushiPro and Tezuka's career (in which case you've probably already encountered similar themes in his more mature manga). Otherwise, just go look up clips of the more interesting animated parts and you've saved yourself from two hours of drudgery.

Cleopatra is a work which is filled with as much good as it is bad. It is based on the life of Cleopatra, which it paints with very broad strokes. Parts of it are incoherent, especially in the first half, while others are genuinely good historical fiction. The opening scene, which mixes live-action and animation, is the worst thing I have ever seen. It was directed by both Osamu Tezuka and Eiichi Yamamoto, and you can see the signature of both of them here. It has Tezuka's trademark humor, which mostly is just inappropriate and jarring here. It's strange to see Tezuka's typical over-the-top slapstickstyle used in the service of a rape joke. The first half of the movie in generally is often tasteless. There is also an entirely unnecessary science fiction subplot that can be removed without losing anything. When it gets serious and emotional, however, its actually worth watching. Some of the best parts are those which evoke the later psychedelic scenes of Belladona of Sadness. There's something in the idea that this movie would have been better without Tezuka directing. Overall, Cleopatra is a very uneven movie, with as much good as bad. I wish I could be the first positive review, but considering the admixture of plenty of flaws into the film, it doesn't really deserve one.