Belladonna of Bong Hits

"I belong in Hell," a fallen peasant wife named Jeanne says. After her brutal rape on her wedding night at the hands of a repugnant, skull-faced Baron, she is seduced by the Devil himself and pledges her soul to the practice of black sorcery in the name of bitter revenge. She has become as terrifying as she is beautiful. She has become the "Belladonna of Sadness."

Belladonna of Sadness is screening for the first time ever in the United States, at Portland's Hollywood Theatre. The cinema got a 4K remaster of this idiosyncratic and transgressive 1973 anime feature prior to its issue on Blu-ray.

Belladonna's action comes from a camera slowly panning over static watercolor scenes. Matter-of-fact narration by a woman with a calm voice punctuates the scroll, offering remarks on the dark proceedings with a distinct lack of empathy, while hallucinatory musical numbers show the remarkable atrocities conjured from Hell and transmitted through Jeanne, who has become the feminine vessel of pure evil. As Jeanne brings bubonic plague to her village, phased electric guitar swirls around electronically processed screams of women in agony. Depicted as a troupe of disgusting lampreys with undulating worm-filled mouths and baggy red eyes, the plague dances in zombie lockstep, intercut with a relief sculpture of the village melting into a puddle of vile black goo. This is not viewing for the timid or the casual stoner looking for a good time. You can't just sit back and take bong hits to this, as you would with Heavy Metal.

While the animation itself is limited, every second of Belladonna is jam-packed with searing images of disturbing, erotic violence that make Ralph Bakshi's Coonskin or Heavy Traffic look like something you'd see on the Home Shopping Channel. In the rare instances when the film is fully animated, the explosive visuals leave you momentarily dazed.

The subject matter is dour, there is a dearth of likable characters, and the plot progression is muddled, but it doesn't really matter. This film exists primarily to exhibit its lurid and vivid phantasmagoria of colors that drip and congeal like blood as bodies melt and faces burn. It's impossible to look away, especially when you want to.

Critic's Grade: B

by Mike Gallucci

SEE it: Belladonna of Sadness is unrated. It opens Friday at the Hollywood Theatre.

Willamette Week