Review of A Letter to Momo (2011)
Seen in 2013.
Chafes at Western preconceptions of children’s entertainment in all the right ways: A somewhat unsympathetic heroine, slow pace, talk of butchering people, debilitating disease, all in a powerfully realistic framework with gestures and facial expressions capable of amusing pretty much the entire 693-person crowd I saw it with at GIFF 2013, which was 50% children. The wishful thinking about an afterlife drags it down somewhat, in particular the last letter getting through. It’s also a little sad that the monsters are the butt of so many humiliating jokes, silly dancing and puellile accessories.