As another reviewer stated, calling this an Anime would probably set false expectations to this movie. Calling it an art animated film on the other hand is exactly the right description for it. And it is visually stunning and more often than not irritating. It may be telling a story, but it also messed with your head optically.

This is very adult, but not in the way some may think. Or not as explicit as some may think this would be. This is clearly about sexuality, about discovering oneself, about boundaries, about liberation of ones own sexual nature and freedom, especially from a woman's point of view. To say you have to be open minded would be an understatement ... a very big one. But if you let yourself onto this ride ... well you'll discover things I reckon ...

This film has several things that made it of interest to me: stylish Japanese animation, a story containing a deal with the devil (I'm always a sucker for movies featuring the devil, don't ask me why),and a director who was certainly not shy about showing nudity and sex (ok, I'm probably a sucker for those too, if they're done right anyway). Unfortunately, the movie doesn't live up to its potential, or perhaps, hasn't aged well. While some of the artwork is beautiful, the plot is simple, plodding along during slow right-to- left pans, and far too often using sex as a crutch. We see the devil having sex with the woman several times, lots of phallic imagery and big boobs, and a bizarre, surreal orgy in the woods featuring people, animals, and half-people/half-animals. It just gets to be a little much, and is definitely written/conceived/drawn from an immature male perspective. It's a shame that such a weighty theme and Faustian premise was so poorly handled. I also have to say that the scenes in France at the end are ridiculous, almost as if someone had an incoherent thought while high. Maybe if you were drunk or on an acid trip watching this film in college with your guy buddies in the 70's or 80's, you would love it. Otherwise, you can enjoy it for a window into what feels like 1960's psychedelia, some of its pretty animation (particularly in the first part of the film),and for it presumably having pushed boundaries in Japan at the time.

Loosely based on the nineteenth-century classic "The Witch" by historian Jules Michelet, "Belladonna" tells the story of a young "everywoman" in a brutally repressive and exploitative feudal society; in her powerlessness she is gradually driven to ancient superstitions and satanic practices, and then accused, tortured and executed for witchcraft. This storyline provides for a pageantry of sado-erotic scenes. "Belladonna" hovers uncomfortably on the edge of pornography but the film is saved, and viewer bewitched, by the incredible wealth of imaginative visual flourishes. Yamamoto's style in this medieval story hovers between classical Japanese landscape painting and twentieth-century underground comics (western style and manga),conjuring up, with accomplished technique, his dark fantasies. Think of Disney's Fantasia, but with more visual variation of style, and dedicated to the themes of lust and cruelty. "Belladonna" is a very early masterpiece of Japanese anime, anticipating Miyazaki by more than two decades.