Seelie Reviews: Time of Eve (Movie)

In the future (probably Japan) droids, robots crafted to look like humans, have become mainstream. In response to their prevalence, the Robot Ethics Committee has launched an extensive ad campaign to stress the differences between humans and androids, in order to prevent humans from becoming "droid-holics" (unhealthily dependent on robots). The story centers on Rikuo and his friend Masaki who stumble upon a cafe known as the "Time of Eve," while trying to find out where Rikuo's house-droid, Sammy, has been spending all her time. The one rule of the cafe is that humans and robots must be treated equally(the robots strip themselves of their ID rings). While Rikuo and Masaki realize that not only is this rule subversive, but actually illegal, they continue to come back to the cafe out of curiosity. The subsequent visits explain the lives of the cafe's various patrons, and help to flesh out the society as a whole.

This one is a bit of a slow starter. The beginning is very sleepy, punctuated by occasional bouts of humor. This beginning, however, barely scratches the surface of the extremely emotional content surrounding the discrimination against and even the abandonment of the droids. This becomes even more powerful when one bares in mind that this story seems to want for you to draw the parallels between droids and oppressed groups in real life.(For example, the weight of what people expect from their droids causes the droids to act more robotic... like many other self-fulfilling stereotypes)

Artwise this movie is a tad washed out in keeping with the urban feel and the eventual seriousness of the content. The style is subtly different from what you usually see, and their noses can be distracting. The artists do a very good job of making each person look like an individual (as opposed to just swapping out their hair). The backgrounds in this are exquisite, sometimes looking a bit like traced photographs. Then again, it is a movie, so we kind of expect this sort of quality.

I did not notice the music at all for this (except during piano-playing scenes) It clearly didn't take anything away, but it wasn't brilliant (except, of course, for some very nice sequences in which Rikuo is playing piano).

Again, so far there is only a sub. I don't really have anything to say on the acting ( That's a personal fault on my part more than anything)

There is also a series version of this which I have not seen. There is a review at the following link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=054AiqNxruM
Story: A
Characters: A (Masaki and Tex are especially interesting)
Visuals: A
Music: Fairly high B+


Overall: A-/A
Very moving and indicative of wider society problems, if you haven't turned it off after the slow start.