I didn't know we did good full length animated movies in Europe so I was pleasantly surprised by Corto Maltese. Perhaps not a great movie, the story feels a little rushed and diffuse in places, but very well made. It is set in eastern Asia after the Russian revolution where Venetian adventurer/pirate Corto Maltese, backed by his friend Rasputin and a secret Chinese society is attempting to steal the gold of the late Tzar from an armored train.
I liked the somewhat muted style of the movie; when stuff gets blown up it's allowed to fall apart without the unsightly balls of fire, when people get shot they die quietly. I won't spoil it for you by revealing the ending, but let me say I liked it. Very untypical. Which can pretty much be said about the entire movie. I don't know if this is because it was made in Europe and is more influenced by European movie tradition than imported animated film or if the makers simply want to create something of a unique European animated flavour. Maybe neither, but I suspect both.
The language is French, which I'm perfectly fine with as long as there are subtitles that I can look at when the speaking gets too fast (I remember watching Wasabi in Japan with French speech Japanese subtitles, that was rather difficult ^^). It'd probably do me good to hear more French so I don't forget it completely.
Well, time to had this movie back to my little brother so he can watch it before returning it. If Folkes wasn't closed on Sundays, thus letting my brother keep the movie for two days instead of one, I wouldn't have gotten to see this. So, thank you Folke ^^

I promise next post won't be about a movie.

Listening to: Jethro Tull - Thick as a Brick