Anime Review: Tree of Palme, A

Review Tree of Palme, A Written by Warpshadow Rating good/ very good

If you learn one thing about children's stories by looking at movies from other countries you learn how dark they can be in comparison to what is available in America. In this case A Tree of Palme definitely follows that trend and is something more for adult tastes as well.

Palme is a puppet created from a culot tree by Dr Fau to take care of his sick wife named Xian. When Xian dies Palme shuts down. Then one day a strange woman comes to Palme's house and has a task for Palme. She wants him to take an object called the egg of Touto to the tree of Souma in the underworld. She also carries an oil that Xian was looking for so Palme can move about and so Palme takes up the task.

Although at first glance this movie may look like Pinnocchio the similarities are very superficial. First of all the setting is a fantasy setting very different from the real world. In fact the surrealism of the setting along with the work put into animating it is the movie's main selling point. The surrealism bleeds over to the movie's plot which I felt was rather philosophical but confusing at points with a fair amount of loose ends. This is also a dark and in points disturbing movie so it is not something that I would recommend to children. For anyone else this is a decent movie worth watching.