Metamorphose Works No.5

Keita Kurosaka’s Henkei Sakuhin Dai 5-ban is an ambitious experiment in avant-garde animation, but its execution often leaves the viewer frustrated. The film’s 27-minute runtime feels unnecessarily long, with many sequences dragging far beyond their impact. The mid-film rotations, flashes, and extreme zooms verge on sensory overload, producing discomfort rather than insight. Kurosaka’s approach to deconstruction and reconstruction is intriguing on paper—systematic fragmentation followed by chaotic rebuilding—but in practice, it feels inverted and inconsistent. What should provoke thought often comes across as tedious or overcomplicated. Technically, the widely available digital versions exacerbate these issues. Overexposure, flattened colors, and minor digital artifacts obscure Kurosaka’s layered images and subtletextures, making it difficult to fully appreciate the intended visual complexity. The afterimages and overlapping forms, normally his strongest tools, are dulled or distorted. While the film contains moments of experimental brilliance, overall it is visually taxing, conceptually muddled, and overly prolonged. For casual viewers or even many experimental enthusiasts, it is a challenging and often frustrating watch. Takeaway: Ambitious in concept, but hindered by pacing, excessive visual intensity, and imperfect digital presentation—more frustrating than enlightening.