Directed and Written by: Michel Gondry, Leos Carax and Joon-ho Bong
Tokyo! is out on DVD and may I suggest it as a weekend rental or for the next chance you get.
Tokyo! is not only a thought-provoking showcase of three films by three talented directors but it has a very cool comics connection: Gabrielle Bell collaborates with Michel Gondry to bring one of her comics in Cecil and Jordan in New York to the screen in the first film, “Interior Design.” She also provides some charming opening credits artwork.
You don’t have to be familiar with Gabrielle Bell’s work to enjoy the first film but it does add to it. Just imagine a quirky creative New Yorker bringing you in close to what it can feel like struggling to just stay afloat in the sink or swim big city. If you know Gabrielle’s work, then all the better since the DVD special features have a couple of segments with her and Gondry discussing how tricky it was to take a New York sensibility and place it in Tokyo. Of course, some things are universal and that is made clear in this film. While site specific, there is an interplay between the general and the specific. These stories could occur just about anywhere on our fragile global village.
“Interior Design” is about a young couple, Hiroko (Ayako Fujitani) and Akira (Ryo Kase), finding their way in the big city. They start by crashing at a friend’s tiny apartment but they quickly wear out their welcome. Akira is promptly established to the viewer as a shallow opportunist. But it is Hiroko who can’t catch a break from anyone. Just as she spots a menial job tailor-made for her, Akira snatches it up. Having left herself in charge of all the drab details while Akira pursues being an artist, she finds herself quite literally fading away.
Ironically, Akira is capable of artful observation when he least expects it. On a walk, and avoiding a serious discussion, Akira talks about how all the buildings refuse to touch each other and how ghosts reside within the gaps. Hiroko, who should know better, is impatient with Akira’s poetic musings. And she’s very dismayed with herself. In a moment of clarity, Akira tells her she must find the one thing she excels at and do it better than anyone else. In a fantastical way, worthy of Kafka, that is exactly what Hiroko does.
“Merde!” the second film, is more than just the story of the latest viral video sensation. It certainly keeps getting darker and deeper than you can digest in a video clip. The opening scene blasts off like a rocket and, in itself, is a must-see: a manhole cover pops off and out jumps a filthy little man with wild red hair, a marble white eye, pointy beard, and a tight-fitting green outfit. He proceeds to slam his way through anyone and everyone down a busy sidewalk, grabbing flowers about to be delivered, snatching a crutch from a man in midstep, and licking the armpit of a young woman for good measure. The rampage is caught on video, off the cell phone from the licked young woman and a star is born.
Director Leos Carax attempts to create a cross between Charlie Chaplin and Godzilla and succeeds. The actor Denis Lavant is so out there as the “creature from the sewers” that he is The Other’s Other and brings up still unsettled issues for Japan and Otherness. It is only with the assistance of a prominent French attorney, wonderfully played by Jean-Francois Balmer, who suspiciously looks a little too much like the creature, that finally an articulate voice is given to insanity. In time, everyone will think they know the creature and have an opinion about him.
No one really knows anyone else in these three films. That disconnection leads to some highly unusual developments. In the last film, “Shaking Tokyo,” directed by Joon-ho Bong, the main character is a hikikomori, or shut-in, played by Teruyuki Kagawa, and so appears to have given up right from the start. He is quite content with his life of quiet routine although he realizes something is missing. It is not until an earthquake, and all the coming together that follows, that he clumsily crosses paths with a beautiful young woman who was just about to deliver to him a pizza when she’s bonked on the head during the quake. When she comes to, she is mesmerized by all the neatly stacked toilet tissue rolls, not to mention the temple created by empty pizza boxes. It moves her to go over and correct the placement of one of the boxes. A match has been made. More will transpire, as love is not so easy. It is a warm and delightful story of one man rebelling against the disconnection within him and around him. A wonderful way to conclude this study in alienation.
July 11th, 2009 at 8:15 am
I liked the 2nd and 3rd story but did not like the first. It was too slow. It had a cool ending though.