Review: Tokyo! (2009)

[Jonathan Moya]

Tokyo!
 (2009)

A Movie Review
By
Jonathan Moya
2 Out of 5 Stars or C+

The Plot: (from MRQE.com)

Triptych feature telling three separate tales set in Tokyo, Japan.
"Shaking Tokyo" centers on a man who has lived for 10 years as a
hikikomori, (a term used in Japan for people unable to adjust to
society and so they never leave their homes) and what happens when he
falls in love one day with a pizza delivery girl. "Interior Design"
follows the story of a wannabe movie director who arrives in Tokyo
with his girlfriend only to find that parts of her bones are turning
into wood. "Merde" concerns a hideous, Gollum-like humanoid that
emerges from the sewers of Tokyo. After wreaking some mild havoc, the
creature is captured and interrogated by the authorities. Merde, as
this terrorist calls himself, baldly indicts the people of Japan as
"disgusting," and the ending suggests that future cities are ripe for
harassment.

The Review:

Tokyo! a triple feature of short films directed by Michel Gondry
(Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), Leos Carax (Pola X, Les
Amants du Pont Neuf) and Bong Joon-hoo (The Host) has nothing but
derision for the host city.   The Tokyoites here are an unloving,
alienated, disaffected and angry bunch.   The title sequence depicts
an animated flat cityscape drawn in muted primary colors-- no pretty
picture postcard views like in Paris and New York film anthologies.
Almost every shoot is street level with almost no hint of sky.
Gondry's Interior Design explores alienated love; Carax's Merde
(French for the expletive s**t) is a satirical attack on everything
Japanese--its imperialist past and capitalist--consumerists present;
Bong Joon-hoo's Shaking Tokyo, exposes a peculiarly Japanese version
of shut-in anxiety, the Hikikomori.

Michel Gondry aligned with Charlie Kaufman equals the brilliant
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.  The two seem to share the same
hallucinations and creative dreams.   Gondry soloing on his own
creations can be pleasantly comfortable (Be Kind Rewind) or a boring
illusionist (The Science of Sleep).  Interior Design about the slow
dissolve of a young and roaming Japanese couple's relationship is
heartfelt and nicely observed until the girlfriend starts turning into
a piece of furniture.   The literal symbolization of her mental and
emotional stasis sacrifices the meaning and a well-earned ending for
trademark kookiness. It is a case of Gondry typically over thinking
the unnecessary.

Leos Carax has been a cinema nonentity since 1999, so not surprisingly
his creature (played by Carax regular Denis Lavant) pops up from a
manhole cover after a long underground sojourn, promptly creating
chaos, shock, fear and loathing in the Japanese denizens he ambles into
-- money, cell phones and flowers magnetically Velcroing to his hair
and clothes.  On his second jaunt, he gleefully tosses the remnants of
an imperialist war cache onto citizenry and infrastructure alike.
Eventually, he is tried, convicted, hung and resurrected.  Allegory or
satire?  Maybe both.  Then, just like its title, Merde is just maybe a
piece of merde.

The 10 year Hikikomori (a person sequestered in his room for six
months or longer with no social life beyond his home, literally a
withdrawn being) of Bong Joon-hoo's Shaking Tokyo crashes into the
world when he pushes a tattooed button on the thigh of a sleeping
pizza delivery girl.   The shock of love causes her to become a
Hikikomori also.  He wanders an overexposed world looking for her, an
earthquake occurring at their meeting and his pleading for her to
enter the light.  Joon-hoo's haiku about the seismic nature of virgin
love gets it right.

Except for Jong-hoo's contribution most of Tokyo!'s wit gets lost in
its impenetrable symbolism.  Interior Design gets a C, Merde a C- and
Shaking Tokyo a B+-- graded on the curve Tokyo! gets a C+.

The Credits:   (From AllMovie.com)

Bong Joon-ho  - Director / Screenwriter Leos Carax  - Director /
Screenwriter Michel Gondry  - Director / Screenwriter Masa Sawada  -
Producer Michiko Yoshitake  - Producer Gabrielle Bell  - Screenwriter
Caroline Champetier  - Cinematographer Jun Fukumoto  - Cinematographer
Masami Inomoto  - Cinematographer Etienne Charry  - Composer (Music
Score) Lee Byung Woo  - Composer (Music Score) Jeff Buchanan  - Editor
Nelly Quettier  - Editor Mitsuo Harada  - Production Designer Yuji
Hayashida  - Production Designer Toshihiro Isomi  - Production
Designer Kenzo Horikoshi  - Executive Producer Hiroyuki Negishi  -
Executive Producer Yuji Sadai  - Executive Producer Celine Guignard  -
Costume Designer Hironori Ito  - Sound/Sound Designer Takeshi Ogawa  -
Sound/Sound Designer Fusao Yuwaki  - Sound/Sound Designer Sadie Hales
- From Idea By

With:  Ayako Fujitani  - Hiroko Ryo Kase  - Akira Ayumi Ito  Denis
Lavant  Jean-François Balmer  Renji Ishibashi  Teruyuki Kagawa  Yu
Aoi  Naoto Takenaka

Copyright 2009 by Jonathan Moya