Berlinale 2026 Review: A Clock Stalled Between Fantasy and Fable in CHIMNEY TOWN: FROZEN IN TIME

Japanese director Hirota Yusuke returns to the universe of Chimney Town with Chimney Town: Frozen in Time, a fantasy sequel that once again follows the young chimney sweeper Lubicchi on a journey into another realm. Hirota directed the first film, Poupelle of Chimney Town, as his feature debut. The animated adaptation of Akihiro Nishino’s book became a domestic box office success. The original story centered on Lubicchi and his unlikely companion Poupelle, a man assembled from garbage.

The sequel resumes shortly after the events of the first film. Lubicchi is struggling with the sudden and unexplained disappearance of Poupelle. While chasing a rat that steals a bracelet symbolizing their friendship, Lubicchi slips into a town fountain and loses consciousness. He wakes in an unfamiliar realm inhabited by anthropomorphic animals and various mythic beings. The film expands the story universe introduced in Poupelle of Chimney Town. 

In this new world Lubicchi encounters Fluff, a large cat with attitude who becomes his reluctant companion. As Lubicchi searches for a way back home and hopes to recover his missing friend, he is drawn into an unlikely task: restarting the clock of the Millennium Fortress, which has stopped at 11:59.

The film introduces a parallel storyline involving Nagi, a spirit inhabiting human form, and Gus, a clockmaker whose relationship with her develops into a quiet romance. When Nagi disappears following a fire, Gus is left without answers. Her absence echoes Lubicchi’s own loss and establishes a recurring motif of separation and unresolved grief. After learning the details of Gus and Nagi’s story, Lubicchi and Fluff decide to investigate what happened to Nagi in the hope of helping Gus find closure and of restoring the frozen clock that may provide Lubicchi with a path home.

Chimney Town: Frozen in Time shifts its setting away from the Victorian inspired steampunk city of the first film toward a more openly fantastical environment. The story remains anchored in a child centered adventure structure, and the film carries visual and tonal echoes of the tradition associated with the Japanese animation studio Studio Ghibli, though largely at the level of aestehtics rather than thematic complexity. The story unfolds as a didactic fable, presenting its moral framework through a sequence of episodic encounters.

The tone alternates between comic detours and moments of melancholy as Lubicchi continues to process the absence of his friend while searching for a way home. This oscillation shapes the film’s rhythm, juxtaposing lighthearted episodes with quieter passages centered on loss and hope.

Hirota, whose background includes computer graphics and hybrid animation techniques, again combines limited character animation with three dimensional environments. The result emphasizes spatial depth and recreates the diorama like quality of Nishino’s illustrated source material. The hybrid 2D/3D approach produces characters that move with limited expressivity against volumetric backgrounds. The visual palette shifts from the smoke muted tones of Chimney Town to brighter hues in the fantasy realm, marking a transition from industrial confinement to a more mythic landscape.

Despite its recurring notes of melancholy, the film ultimately tackles the topics of loss, belief and hope, directed primarily toward younger viewers. Compared with its predecessor, the sequel offers fewer imaginative digressions, reflecting its orientation toward a youth audience. Even so, the film maintains a steady narrative pace and benefits from moments of humor amidst advenutures, while relying on familiar character archetypes, a straightforward moral trajectory.