An ironic but not unrelated sensibility reigns over the ritual in “Omikuji”. Randomly drawn, they contain predictions ranging from “great good luck” to “great bad luck”. So the stills from this film - can be pulled randomly in tremendously stretched apparition of happiness and disaster. By tying the omikuji around a tree’s branch, good fortune will come true or bad fortune can be averted. By taking this film apart, in slices, it can be perceived as a holy love song, or as a silent preamble of unknown. The luscious colors, bright whites, deep pink skin and emerald greenery feel warm and odd at the same time, familiar and savage. Floating along with the sacred game, viewers are led by an intuitive sense that all this theater and life would mix well, though could both be silly, playful, spooky, and, at times, sinister. “Omikuji” begins with an innocent mass-produced object meant to shield and heighten the beauty of the ceremony. All overlooked particles of the game are stitched here together and cast attention upon making diverse new forms of art that crossed boundaries, both culturally and in terms of film-making invasion. Theatrical essence of the ceremony is iconic and obvious, “presentness is grace”. (Michael Fried’s “Art and Objecthood”). The film has a bright and dark side to its imagery and music, it feels like devotional scenes of a vaguely secret sect, and clues to the exact meanings of the rituals are hard to find. It acknowledges the offset of winter and the dark, cold, depressing, rainy months that follow.