Tree of Palme has been described as a futuristic Japanese take on Pinocchio, but while the film does feature an artificial boy who wants to be human, that theme is only a small part of a wide-ranging epic adventure. In a world full of strange floating sky-plants and flappy little dragonlike "crow-snakes," a botanist named Fou creates a puppet/robot from the wood of a kooloop tree, a plant with several bizarre properties: It's metallic rather than fibrous; it lives off the energy of memories, which it draws from the ground; and it grows unbelievably quickly when exposed to sunlight. As Fou warns his creation, Palme, he'll start rooting and become a tree if he stands in sunlight without oil to lubricate him.
Fou originally created Palme to help and comfort his wife, Xian, who was ill after a lifetime of obsessing over the theoretical existence of an incredibly powerful tree-sap called crosskahla. While tending Xian and bringing her flowers, Palme was as sprightly, energetic and chattery as a young boy. But after she died, Palme went dormant for years at a time, and as the movie opens, he silently and mindlessly tears himself apart while reaching for an uncertain goal.
But in a confusing series of events, a blue-skinned woman named Koram appears and gives Palme a metallic sphere. She explains that she's from Tamas, the underground world usually just called Below. The sphere is called the Egg of Touto, and Koram wants it delivered Below. To help Palme keep the Egg alive, she gives Fou a supply of crosskahla, which he injects into Palme's system while installing the Egg in his abdomen. Men from Tamas come looking for the egg, killing Fou in the process, and Palme starts his quest addled and semi-functional, prone to distraction and obsession. But eventually he meets companions, including a warrior boy from Below and the abused daughter of an embittered dancer, and he begins to regain his sense of self and purpose. Only when he realizes what a pitiful, dysfunctional thing he is does he suddenly desire to become human.
Bizarre, difficult and gorgeous
In some ways, A Tree of Palme is a bizarre and difficult work: It throws around terms and concepts as though viewers were naturally already aware of its complex mythology and geography, and it introduces characters in a dizzying array of scenes that don't even entirely fit together on subsequent viewings. Many questions are raised but never addressed—perhaps most notably the nature of the bolas, a species of upright cactus-y things that hop around and periodically swarm over people. The bolas are key in several sequences, and they behave somewhat like the Ohmu in Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, so it's tempting to see them as a similarly wise but implacable natural force. But nothing about them ever becomes clear, and several scenes involving them remain baffling.
Still, Palme is a gorgeous and unique project, for all that it borrows heavily from other anime films. Writer-director Takashi Nakamura was a key player on Akira, Nausicaä and Robot Carnival, and his feature (his second, after Catnapped: The Movie) leans noticeably on imagery and plot hooks from all three projects. The bolas are one example, and the film's Akira-like climax is another, but plot specifics aside, Palme has a refreshingly Nausicaä-like deliberation to its pacing, and a similar fascination with complex fantasy ecologies. Many of Palme's scenes are devoted to the world's amazingly beautiful and imaginative wildlife, and its soaring vistas. There's a lot of action, but the movie's rarely in a huge hurry; like a Miyazaki film, it takes time to establish its visual details and explore its amazing world.
And there are many more unique things about Palme, from its creepy score (which makes heavy use of an Ondes Martenot for eerie, otherworldly effect) to its terrifically complicated backstory and many-threaded plot. It's an ambitious project, from the world-spanning script to the lovely painted animation, and sometimes it reaches a little too far, leaving clarity behind. But animation buffs are likely to be enthralled by both its surreal images and its surreal, dreamy story.
Palme himself is a blunt, wide-eyed little Astro Boy figure, and his cuteness may lead people to expect a kids' movie. It isn't: It's dark, creepy and often violent. A scene in which Palme kills a cute, wide-eyed Bambi-like creature, apparently just to see what will happen if he hits it with a sword, is particularly horrifying, but be warned, traumatic clashes and gory death are recurring themes throughout the film.
— Tasha
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