by Kambole Campbell

The second Gundam story in the last five or so years to be named after a 'witch' opens on a stark sequence which appears throughout the franchise with similar regularity: a boots-on-the-ground view of the collateral damage of giant mech suits doing battle. Even after all these decades it's always striking when the series' metaphysical drama around telepathic evolved humans is punctuated with a sense of verisimilitude with regards to the physical consequences of the hulking machines being piloted: a rogue shell casing kills a fleeing woman in F91, in the previous Hathaway film a rogue spark from a beam clash lighting a fire in nearby trees. There's more I'm forgetting, but it's part of how some mistake Gundam for being a purely military sci-fi and not the sprawling, and often very weird, space opera canvas it is, politically driven though it may be. 

Maybe the Hathaway films, like 08th MS Team before it, make it easier to buy into that belief through its visual commitment to 'realism': the volume felt in its character drawings and the way their clothes drape over them, a focus on more minute expressions rather than big ones, the detail of Hathaway Noa's brow furrowing as he struggles to drown out the noise of his bunkmate eating, the plain office backdrops. (It's not uncommon for a mecha series to treat the giant robots with a matter of factness to the point where these characters could just as well be regular fighter pilots.)

Perhaps that buy-in also comes down to the connections director Shūkō Murase draws through the rhythms of the editing and the camerawork – during said aforementioned opening sequence, the camera observes the chaos through a continuous, 360-degree spin from the point of view of a civilian struggling to flee. A following sequence depicts a military office in a similar sense, rotating through the space of those making the decisions with a distinct lack of care for the collateral damage – connected visually, but separate, and insulated from the violence.

All of this is to say that, strangely enough, the Hathaway films still work somewhat independently of the original films and the weight of their fictional history, because of this close attention all of the narrative complications of the Universal Century story melt away in the face of that peril as in the opening, or the conflicted romance between protagonist Hathaway Noa and Gigi Andalucia (what a name). As the son of a major character from the original Mobile Suit Gundam and its sequels, Hathaway's fraying mind and self-loathing is represented by confrontations with literal ghosts of that past, some cruel ironies which require a little bit of homework on Char's Counterattack to fully land. Even the previous film features a flashback of Hathaway running to Amuro and Char fighting, repeated in this new film and expanded upon.  But the internal conflict and yearning is otherwise always clear. 

The Sorcery of Nymph Circe follows shortly after the first, during the escalation of the insurgency of the organisation Mafty against the Earth Federation, once the “heroes” of the Gundam story, if considered in incredibly simplistic terms. As in the first film Hathaway, who goes by the alias of Mafty, bristles at the unavoidable harm of his otherwise righteous mission of overthrowing a corrupt government, feelings aggravated by his pining for Gigi, a young woman he meets in the previous film who is also in a relationship with a federation officer.

You don't really have to know what “Minovsky Particles” are, as the intimate dramas orbiting Hathaway are still what matter most. The 3D elements of the animation stand out as even more uncanny given this acute focus, but The Sorcery of Nymph Circe doesn't suffer too much under this: despite the ostentatious title, it's a rather quiet, still film for most of its runtime, even if an otherwise mundane scene of Gigi decorating an apartment has a pop song blaring over it.

The close observation of the character's messy personal lives doesn't always feel sophisticated, even while Gigi is less of a prop this time around, as the film literally inhabits her perspective, a stark contrast to how the men in her life treat her as a prop. But then there are scenes like one featuring a topless mecha mechanic, despite this being the choice of the character, and the close emphasis put into her tanlines and the gaze of the sequence is a kind of leering which at this point is also characteristic of Gundam. Desire and sensuality are important to the film (and important to film in general) but it's a beat which feels as though it tips into fan service even as it reveals an insecurity around Hathaway: the moment mostly serves him. 

Beyond that, the film often says the quiet part loud, with Hathaway griping about balancing his righteous mission to shock the world into taking action to fix it with his ongoing "carnal desires" (another great line: "your head is full of ideology, isn't it?"). Even so, when the war inevitably spills out of briefing rooms and offices, it all makes for rich human context for the ensuing clash of metal on metal. That emotional context is incredibly valuable to a sequence which, as well blocked and choreographed as it is, the 3D animation feels like it lacks a little tactility, at least there's something else to get a hold of. That and some punchy sound design, highlighted by the soundtrack fading away. 

Speaking of the soundtrack: I almost forgot to mention that this film opens with a song by SZA and closes with "Sweet Child O' Mine" of all things, if that's any more illustration of how Gundam can both be sensitive and outrageous in the same breath, but maybe that's why it's still compelling after all these years.

/out of frame

🎞️ Kambole: Two trailers have piqued my interest recently: one is that for Viva Carmen!, the new film by Sébastien Laudenbach (Chicken for Linda!). It's an adaptation of Bizet's Carmen opera told in the same graphic style which made his previous film so compelling. The other trailer I didn't expect to be so taken as I am with it: for the video game Stranger Than Heaven, a Yakuza prequel about the men who founded the Tojo Clan central to the story of that series. Snoop Dogg is in it! And on the theme song with Ado! What a world.

🧙‍♀️Toussaint: Nothing much to report on my end, other than I finally started a new save of Hades II for the first time since 2024 and have been playing that consistently in between my fatherly duties. Death to Chronos.