Composer:
Étienne CharryCast:
Satoshi Tsumabuki, Yū Aoi, Teruyuki Kagawa, Ayumi Itō, 藤谷文子, Julie Dreyfus, Denis Lavant, Jean-François Balmer, Naoto Takenaka, Ryō Kase, YosiYosi Arakawa, 大森南朋 (more)Plots(1)
This triptych of short films about Asia’s most misunderstood metropolis features three directors known for cinematically capturing the uncanny, and showing the individual oddity and anxiety that lurks beneath the surface of our smooth social interaction. While the two Western filmmakers, Michel Gondry and Leos Carax, simply relocate their favorite themes to Tokyo, the Korean director Bong Joon-ho more successfully allows the city to dictate the style and content of his segment.
Gondry’s Interior Design depicts Hiroko (Ayako Fujitani) and Akira (Ryo Kase), an aimless artistic couple who overstay their welcome in a friend’s tiny apartment. Their illusions about finding success in Tokyo are gradually dissolved by the reality checks of their abysmal apartment search, some severe parking violations, and an embarrassing screening of Akira’s shoddy debut film. Hiroko’s antidote for her disappointment is to forcibly fluctuate the boundaries between reality and her perception, which ultimately results in an unusual transformation.
Merde, Carax’s contribution, is the most memorable of the trio, but also the least successful. Denis Lavant plays a grotesque miscreant who periodically emerges from the sewers to terrorize the city. The sequence itself becomes a monstrous barrage of symbolism, as Carax variously invokes Tokyo’s issues with immigration, terrorism, technology, translation, and the memory of war.
Bong’s Shaking Tokyo is a slow ode to the subculture of "hikikomori," Japanese agoraphobes who refuse to emerge from their homes. A shut-in (Teruyuki Kagawa) lives a contented life in his immaculately ordered apartment, marked by the straight lines of his stacked books and the harmonious circles of paper-towel rolls and water bottles. When a series of earthquakes and an encounter with an alluring pizza girl force the recluse to venture outside, Bong begins to blur the sharp defining lines and edges within the frame, washing out the crisp focus with an ethereal surge of light.
(Liberation)
Cast
Satoshi Tsumabuki
Japan
Best movies:
It's Only Talk (2005)
Tokyo Family (2013)
Josee, the Tiger and the Fish (2003)
Yū Aoi
Japan
Best movies:
Tekkonkinkreet (2006)
Tokyo Family (2013)
The Lightning Tree (2010)
Teruyuki Kagawa
Japan
Best movies:
Memories of Tomorrow (2006)
Devils on the Doorstep (2000)
One Piece Film: Z (2012)
Ayumi Itō
Japan
Best movies:
Swallowtail & Butterfly (1996)
Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (2005)
Solanin (2010)
藤谷文子
Japan
Best movies:
Ritual (2000)
Tokyo! (2008)
Gamera 2: Attack of the Legion (1996)
Julie Dreyfus
France
Best movies:
Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
Denis Lavant
France
Best movies:
Les Misérables (1982)
The Lovers on the Bridge (1991)
Tuvalu (1999)
Jean-François Balmer
Switzerland
Best movies:
The French Revolution (1989) (TV movie)
Cop or Hood (1979)
East Wind (1993)
Naoto Takenaka
Japan
Best movies:
Vengeance for Sale (2001)
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004)
I Just Didn't Do It (2006)
Ryō Kase
Japan
Best movies:
Nobody Knows (2004)
I Just Didn't Do It (2006)
Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)
YosiYosi Arakawa
Japan
Best movies:
Tokyo Tower: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad (2007)
Josee, the Tiger and the Fish (2003)
Memories of Matsuko (2006)
大森南朋
Japan
Best movies:
I Just Didn't Do It (2006)
It's Only Talk (2005)
Crying Out Love, In the Center of the World (2004)
Yutaka Matsushige
Japan
Best movies:
Eureka (2000)
Inu-Oh (2022)
Crows-Zero (2007)
山本浩司
Japan
Best movies:
I Just Didn't Do It (2006)
True Mothers (2020)
The Lightning Tree (2010)
Andrée Damant
France
Best movies:
Amélie (2001)
No Time for Breakfast (1976)
My Father's Glory (1990)
Motomi Makiguchi
Japan
Best movies:
Perfect Days (2023)
Tokyo! (2008)
石丸謙二郎
Japan
Best movies:
Always - Sunset on Third Street (2005)
Hazard (2005)
Fish Story (2009)
北見敏之
Japan
Best movies:
I Just Didn't Do It (2006)
Swallowtail & Butterfly (1996)
Tokyo! (2008)
Yoshiyuki Morishita
Japan
Best movies:
Fireworks (1997)
The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi (2003)
Heavenly Forest (2006)