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Many anime fans acclaim writer-director Hiroyuki Yamaga's Wings of Honneamise as a masterpiece, but general audiences may react less enthusiastically. Honneamise is a small country in a parallel world very similar to Earth. Shiro Lhadatt, the least impressive cadet in the air force flight school, volunteers to become the first astronaut in a controversial space program. Training toughens his body, while the priggish evangelist Riqunni challenges him to discipline his spirit. In one distasteful sequence, Shiro attempts to rape her. The next morning he starts to apologize, only to have her apologize for braining him with a candlestick, a scene certain to infuriate feminists. Despite an invasion by a hostile country, Shiro gets into space and delivers a ponderous homily from his capsule. Wings was made by a group of young artists in 1987, and with a record- setting budget. Art director Hiromasa Ogura's lavish designs blend '80s high-tech with art nouveau, and Yamaga's leaden pacing gives viewers the time to study every detail. Fans of Honneamise acclaim it as a critical meditation on the illusions and follies of the human race, which suggests that profundity, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. (Ages 13 and older for violence, attempted rape, and occasional profanity) --Charles Solomon
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