Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer

A Japanese animated film. A high school is preparing for its festival. Classes are building stalls, the students work into the night and everyone is tired. The next day is another day of preparation. Then another. The characters notice: the same day is repeating. But not exactly; with each turn the surroundings empty a little more. People thin out, shops close, the city goes quiet. From there the film becomes an investigation. Why does this loop exist, who wants it, and is the outside still there. The answer is tied to a wish: somebody wanted the day before the festival, full of anticipation, never to end. What the narrative is interested in is not comedy but time: it is a film of a popular youth series, but the tone changes completely; the second half has an empty city, streets under water and the logic of a dream. On release it split the series' followers; some counted it a betrayal, others the best thing in it. Later it was taken as one of the turning points of Japanese animation. Mamoru Oshii wrote and directed; much of what he would work on in later films starts here. The source is Rumiko Takahashi's comic. Who it is for: anyone who likes experimental animation and narratives built on dreams. Who it is not for: anyone who does not know the series; the characters are not introduced and the jokes of the first half do not work without context.