Rohan au Louvre (2023)

"At the Louvre I saw the Black"

Kishibe Rohan takes his supernatural ability to read people like a book on the road to Paris. At the Louvre he will confront a relentless evil residing in a hidden painting. The story jumps back and forth in time with much of the story told in the past. Fair warning: If you have arachnophobia you will want to avoid this film at all costs.

Rohan is working on a new manga and after remembering a story about the blackest of blacks, so black it doesn’t reflect light and is in essence invisible, decides to hunt a painting down that uses the rare pigment. Death and spiders follow the path that takes him to an auction for a painting and then to the Louvre in search of the original.

The cinematography ranged from gauzy and ethereal, to elegant, to dark and foreboding. Discordant notes and chords accompanied the creepier facets of the film. The supernatural elements of Rohan’s gift and the cursed painting were well done, especially for someone who has neither read the manga nor watched the drama.

Takahashi Issei can always be counted on to give a layered performance even when wearing a headband designed for a manga character. He actually played two characters, giving them both separate personalities ranging from light to absolute darkness. Marie Iitoyo as Rohan’s editor seemed out of place with her childlike acting. Kimura Fumino matched the mood of the film as the haunted Nanase. The Louvre could almost be counted as a cast member with its lovely exhibits, own complex history, and gloomy, forgotten vaults.

The film felt like it might have been better served as a two-episode drama due to all of the backstories which took up a substantial amount of time. Both of the trips to the past felt overly long. Not having the compelling Issei on the screen also took away from the forward momentum of the story. Overall, it was a strange, creepy (crawly!) movie that did manage to integrate the past and the present connections to the sinister painting lurking in the shadowy corners of the Louvre.

10/25/23

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a 4 year tradition!

I do hope they make more :(
I’ll start with the good, the acting, Rohan as a character, the art and hunting aspect are great

The bad, the pacing wasn’t smooth, the teen vr wasn’t interesting and the connection didn’t happen until the last ten minutes or so
Which was also the moment the plot actually moved, so for a two hour movie, that’s a bad balance, eventho there was a search, it wasn’t that complicated, it was all so simple but it took so long to reach
Fl eventho she has her charm, she’s also a bit like a NPC/ helping hand, she’s always not treated as a person, more like a blank sheet
The connection between Rohan and nazuki(?), eventho appreciated, that story felt disconnected beside the black haired lady


Why was he the old painter? I really loved the acting, even the ironic “if he didn’t go back to his family, his sick wife and him would’ve not died”, which is a poetic remoteness
But why was he acted by takahashi? And sure the black hair lady wanted the painting and her husband’s curse broken but

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