Three internationally acclaimed directors present their visions of Japan’s capital city
Tokyo!
Directed by Michel Gondry, Leos Carax and Bong Joon-ho
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Apparently the world’s major metropolises have hit upon a new scheme to attract new revenue and boost tourism: invite a bunch of filmmakers to make short films about the city that can be played in cinemas around the globe. This trick certainly worked for the 2006 anthology feature Paris, je t’aime (Paris, I Love You), which enjoyed a successful theatrical run both here and abroad and almost certainly convinced numerous travelers to make Paris their next vacation spot. Later this year, the Big Apple gets into the act with the upcoming New York, I Love You, which finds actors like Kevin Bacon, Rachel Bilson and Orlando Bloom appearing in films directed by such filmmakers as Mira Nair, Brett Ratner and…Scarlett Johansson?! Well, at least her first movie will be short.
Beating New York, I Love You to screens is Tokyo!, a collection of three films set in Japan’s hustling, bustling capital. Unlike Paris, je t’aime, which mixed fantastical visions of the City of Lights alongside more toruist-friendly postcard portraits, all of the movies in Tokyo! are pretty whacked out. That’s largely because the producers picked three oddball filmmakers to take on this project–Michel Gondry (The Science of Sleep), Leos Carax (The Lovers on the Bridge) and Bong Joon-ho (The Host). None of these men could tell a straightforward story if they’re lives depended on it, which is great news for film buffs, if not necessarily moviegoers interested in more traditional fare.
There has yet to be an anthology film made where all of the shorts are of equal quality (well, except maybe Four Rooms…but that’s only because each “room” was torture to sit through) and that’s certainly the case with Tokyo! Let’s start with the movie I liked the least, “Merde,” Carax’s bizarre spin on those old Godzilla movies that constantly depicted Tokyo’s destruction at the hands of radioactive monsters. Carax’s film finds a crazed white man with a shock of red hair and green pants (Denis Lavant) emerging from the city’s sewers and raising all kinds of havoc. Captured by the police, he’s tried for his crimes in court, where his lawyer–who may or may not speak his client’s unique language–doesn’t exactly do a great job defending him. Although clever at first, the film all but grinds to a halt during the trial sequence, which seems to last an eternity. Let’s just say I’m not looking forward to Carax’s promised sequel, which finds this character headed for New York City.
I had a better time with Michel Gondry’s film, “Interior Design,” an amusing trifle about a longtime couple who move to Tokyo in search of better opportunities. Akira (Ryo Kase) harbors dreams of being a big-time filmmaker and arrives in town with a battered reel of his experimental feature in the hopes of showing it to someone in the biz. His girlfriend Hiroko (Ayako Fujiani) doesn’t have a clear career goal, which their mutual friends regard as a substantial character flaw. If you’re familiar with Gondry’s work, you know that he loves to mix reality and fantasy, so it shouldn’t came as a surpirse to hear that “Interior Design” takes a bizarre turn halfway through. Fortunately, this flight of fancy pays off in a final scene that’s both odd and oddly touching.
As much as I enjoyed “Interior Design,” my favorite film of the three has to be Bong Joon-Ho’s “Shaking Tokyo,” which revolves around a man who has spent the past decade living inside his house–a real-life social phenomenon known as hikikimori. One day, his orderly, regimented life is interrupted by the arrival of a pizza-delivery girl who he immediately develops a crush on. When she doesn’t re-appear the following day, he ventures outside for the first time in ten years and find her. In addition to the intriguing story, Joon-ho makes excellent use of Tokyo’s cityscape. It’s the one film of the three that might encourage viewers to come out of the theater and book a flight to Japan.
Verdict: Rent It
