qmisato:

Splitting of The Breast is remarkable for its striking, supersaturated visuals. It’s no accident that the episode is marked by such high contrast, light and dark, when the subject matter involves Shinji embarking on a psychoanalytical voyage within the surrealist confines of a shadow. The “angel of the week”, Leliel, is a massive floating behemoth in black and white – diametric opposites – and likewise the entire episode is built upon complementary inter-textual contrasts: the rational vs emotional, parent vs child, boy vs girl, physicality vs the soul. After 15 episodes of relative tame and exposition, Episode 16′s harsh colors, formalist diagonal structure, and oppressive shadows allow the more arcane Freudian undertones to finally take their command.