The Cinematheque

New Restoration

“A beautiful, hilarious movie and one that cemented Kon Satoshi as a visionary and narrative master.”

Kyle Anderson, Nerdist

Kon Satoshi swapped mind-bending for soul-stirring in this spirited Christmas-set urban comedy, his third animated feature. Inspired by John Ford’s cowboys-plus-a-baby movie 3 Godfathers, Kon’s exuberant fable follows three homeless misfits—an alcoholic, a transwoman, and a teenage runaway—who discover an abandoned newborn on Christmas Eve. From there, a makeshift family is formed to care for the mystery foundling (christened ​“Kiyoko,” the Japanese equivalent to ​“Silent Night”) and a madcap journey across snowy Tokyo ensues to reunite the baby with her birth parents. Kon threads miracles, cosmic coincidence, and a startling amount of real-world malady into this rambunctious yuletide tale, co-written with Cowboy Bebop scribe Nobumoto Keiko. The touchingly humanist film, easily Kon’s most accessible, was yet another critical darling for the anime auteur, earning him the best director prize at the Tokyo Anime Awards. In Japanese with English subtitles.

“A kind of neorealist cartoon, a heartfelt urban fable about human decency among the down-and-out … The visual and narrative joys of the movie [are] ample.”

A. O. Scott, New York Times

“A spellbinding piece of Japanese anime from one of the form’s new masters.”

Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune