Tokyo!

(France, South Korea, 2008, 112 mins)

DigiBeta

Selected Filmography:  

PRODS: Sawada Masa, Yoshitake Michiko
SCR: Gabrielle Bell, Michel Gondry, Leos Carax, Bong Joon-Ho
CAM: Inomoto Masami, Caroline Champetier, Fukomoto Jun
EDS: Jeff Buchanan, Nelly Quettier
Cast: Fujitani Ayako, Kase Ryo, Denis Lavant, Jean-François Balmer, Kagawa Teruyuki, Aoi Yu

An auteurist’s dream comes true with this omnibus vehicle bringing together three of the most individualistic directors of the last 20 years. Bong Joon-Ho (director of two of South Korea’s most memorable recent films, The Host and Memories of Murder), Leos Carax (France’s no-longer-so-enfant terrible, responsible for Les Amants du Pont-Neuf and the controversial Pola X) and Michel Gondry (creator of the mind-warping Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) take aim at Japan’s capital city and produce three markedly different jeus d’esprit, all of which display their mastery of visual narrative while thoroughly entertaining audiences.

First up is Gondry’s Interior Design which gives us a clueless would-be Japanese filmmaker and his girlfriend who arrive in Tokyo and begin searching for suitable digs. Frustrated at every turn, the young wannabe auteur undergoes a bodily transformation that is both eye-popping and strangely appropriate. Think Cronenberg in his earlier, more visceral phase... Carax’s Merde stars Denis Lavant, in hair-raising make-up, as a semi-human monster from the sewers let loose in the downtown core. Once caught, he spews all manner of satirical jibes in the direction of his Japanese hosts... Bong focuses on a hermit-like agoraphobe who refuses to leave his well-appointed apartment--until the combination of a beautiful delivery girl and an earthquake shake him from his nest... "[The directors] make a great deal of mischief in [this]... enjoyable trio of films that take affectionate (and sometimes literal) aim at the Japanese capital. Fittingly, horror and sci-fi represent the primary building blocks of these Tokyo stories..."--Variety

Rated: 14A; violence

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