Fafner of the Azure: Dead Agressor - Heaven and Earth (Anime Film) Review.

 

This review is based on having seen the anime TV series Fafner: Dead Aggressor and having experience of the previous material; I want to state that this film is not really a good film to watch sans knowledge of it and can take my rating of it as based on having that prior knowledge and that without it, it's dense and hard to parse. I would advise watching the series' first if you wish to watch it.

 

Heaven and Earth is a film that surprised me quite a bit. Fafner is a series about sacrifice and loss and how it marks us indelibly. We won't be the same however much we might want to go back to that and we have to keep moving forward to try and do and be something better. It's a story about war and loss, using the backdrop of a future where a mysterious race called Fetsum essentially have dominated the human race and the pockets of humanity across the world survive and fight back where they can. But the series isn't truly focused on that as the scale; but on an island, filled with kids who are urged to go fight back in big, jetplane looking mecha called Fafner. The series was about the cost against the Festum, the cost of interacting with the humans of this harsh world and most of all, the cost fighting in this war would have on these children. It was an anime that was at points bleak, perhaps to the point of eye rolling tropey at points but also, in surprisingly effecting and earnest little moments. I've watched both the series and the prequel, Right of Left, an OVA exploring the lead up to it. Both, Right of Left in particular, drift into the horror of war with the hope present but stifled by a constant onslaught of suffering and pain.

 

Heaven and Earth occurs in the wake of the end of the series, taking place two years after its ending and as such, it is a different world so to speak. It's not as if this wasn't the case before, but I'll limit spoilers so suffice to say; the nature of the world is one in which desperate desire for peace is very much the forefront of peoples thinking. The plot of the film is a little dense and heavily relies on knowledge of the series to parse what feels like a dozen threads back to back. If you don't remember a character too well, it doesn't help that the art style has slight changed; meaning characters without distinct hair colors or designs feel a little harder to sort through on observation. The film also introduces the idea of the antagonists, Festum as living, breathing beings in the sense of thought further amplified then the series could. The questions about peace and morality are present and the story does at least for me, have moments where there are resonant plot moments. There are narrative sequences that touch on or seem to discuss the thread of nuclear fallout that are not truly explored enough for the consequence and unity across the divide. There's conflict with other humans who are approaching an 'exterminate on sight' sort of mentality. It's a story that isn't exactly new but I found it gave me a lot of moments where I felt invested in it, excited by it. I took that brightly.

 

And while the story has moments where it can be a bit muddling but still good; the film uses quite a bit of CGI in place of some of the drawn art used previously for the Fafner's themselves; and yet it lends action scenes I was actively enjoying and dazzled by when I got to watch them. I think the films shining points, the moment where it feels the most exciting is some incredibly vivid action sequences, with effects like the air intaking around a bubble of energy or a flight battle with careening cameras as the jets sore through explosions and curl around in dogfights to be just really cool to watch. It was simply cool, something that made me remember that sometimes it's just the visual dazzle of a really cool moment that kind of lays up an incredible moment of passion that reminds me why it's cool to just watch things. The soundtrack is also, while signalling its hand a little heavily, does so with incredible effort and I found a lot of passion in hearing how good it was. A lot of scenes were elevated by that music or the use of lighting or the environment to add touches the original series didn't have; a line of metal walls glowing with red alarm lights piercing as if eyes, with rows of machine guns lining a bridge in front of them, the pure anxiety defensiveness embodied occurring during a celebration and honoring of loss and mourning.

 

It took me a long time to sit and watch this, the new year ringing in. But I had a great time and despite all my anxiety, this came out with more hope than it did loss. I find that endearing that in a year where I kind of need it most, Fafner of all things what gave me some. I'm a little stunned by it.

 

Picture from animeclickit