Three directors, three segments.
The first part, Michel Gondry’s “Interior Design,” is probably the best, and for most of its length the most conventional. The Tokyo Gondry (Be Kind Rewind, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) portrays is cramped and expensive, like many large cities. (The segment was adapted from a graphic novel called Cecil and Jordan in New York.) The main characters are a filmmaker and his girlfriend, who’ve just moved to the city and are temporarily sharing a friend’s tiny flat. Just as the plot and characters have been developed, though, it takes a turn for the fantastic, with the ending ultimately too abrupt and unsatisfying.
On the other hand, Leos Carax’s (Pola X) “Merde” was unsatisfying throughout. Featuring one of the most irritating central characters since Tom Green in Freddy Got Fingered, a crazy red-haired dude who comes up from the sewers and creates mayhem, it’s the only segment featuring non-Japanese characters. Possibly it is saying something about the country’s cultural homogeneity. Or not.
Finally, Japan native Joon-ho Bong (The Host, Memories of Murder) presents “Shaking Tokyo,” the shortest and simplest segment, about the paradoxical isolation big-city residents can experience. Its central character is a hikkomori, a hermit who survives on a parental stipend and delivered food. A chance event leads to his first human interaction in ten years.
IMDB link
viewed at Ritz Bourse and reviewed 4/14/09
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