Full-length feature films that are really just compilations of shorter movies - usually revolving around a single topic or theme - tend not to work out all that well in the long one. Either the limited running time afforded to each individual story results in characters and plot lines that are too sketchy and underdeveloped to fully capture our interest, or the quality of each individual part varies so wildly that the movie as a whole fails to satisfy.
After "Paris je t'amie" a few years back and "Tokyo!" now, it would appear that, at some point, every "exotic" city will have a multi-part cinematic valentine to call its own. And whereas "Paris, je t'aime," not surprisingly, applied a romantic patina to its setting, "Tokyo!," also not surprisingly, has opted for a more sci-fi and metaphysical-oriented approach in exploring its locale.
In the first tale, "Interior Design," directed by Michel Gondy, Akira and Hiroki are a young couple who have come to the city to look for work and a place to live. He's an avant garde filmmaker, she his part time assistant and fulltime girlfriend. The movie deals with the tension that develops between not only Akira and Hiroki over finances and their future together but between the couple and the female friend whose cramped apartment they're all staying in at the moment. Then, just at the point where all is beginning to seem hopeless, Hiroki involuntarily turns into a chair. You were expecting something different, perhaps?
"Interior Design," is of interest primarily in the way that it goes from the prosaic to the surreal without the slightest transition or warning. It's amusing to watch as the characters' lives suddenly come to parallel the movies he makes and the imaginative scenarios they are constantly playing out in their relationship. That one of those scenarios suddenly turns out to be real - or is it? - is all just a part of the game.
The second episode, "Merde," directed by Leos Carax, is even more over-the-edge in its content than "Interior Design." Denis Lavant plays a grizzled sort of man/creature in a green suit who emerges periodically from his home in the sewers to terrorize the understandably distraught citizens who inhabit the world above. Unsure of how to cope with such a menace, the Japanese government calls in a French lawyer with a goatee that perfectly matches the creature's to help with the crisis. Unfortunately, this highly stylized segment becomes a grueling, heavy-handed polemic against racism, xenophobia and capital punishment, devoid of charm, grace or even a modicum of entertainment value.
Luckily, in terms of quality, things pick up considerably with "Shaking Tokyo," easily the best of the bunch in both consistency and style. Imaginatively directed by Bong Joon-ho, "Shaking Tokyo" is a lyrical and poetic tale of a "hikikomori" - a person with a pathological phobia of leaving the house - who has to figure out what to do when he falls in love with a woman who, after meeting him once, turns into a hikikomori herself.
Thus, as with many of these omnibus movie packages, "Tokyo!" becomes, ultimately, a thing of bits and pieces, of two episodes that work and one that doesn't (not a bad ratio as these things go, actually). My advice, therefore, would be to watch parts one and three and skip part two altogether.
After "Paris je t'amie" a few years back and "Tokyo!" now, it would appear that, at some point, every "exotic" city will have a multi-part cinematic valentine to call its own. And whereas "Paris, je t'aime," not surprisingly, applied a romantic patina to its setting, "Tokyo!," also not surprisingly, has opted for a more sci-fi and metaphysical-oriented approach in exploring its locale.
In the first tale, "Interior Design," directed by Michel Gondy, Akira and Hiroki are a young couple who have come to the city to look for work and a place to live. He's an avant garde filmmaker, she his part time assistant and fulltime girlfriend. The movie deals with the tension that develops between not only Akira and Hiroki over finances and their future together but between the couple and the female friend whose cramped apartment they're all staying in at the moment. Then, just at the point where all is beginning to seem hopeless, Hiroki involuntarily turns into a chair. You were expecting something different, perhaps?
"Interior Design," is of interest primarily in the way that it goes from the prosaic to the surreal without the slightest transition or warning. It's amusing to watch as the characters' lives suddenly come to parallel the movies he makes and the imaginative scenarios they are constantly playing out in their relationship. That one of those scenarios suddenly turns out to be real - or is it? - is all just a part of the game.
The second episode, "Merde," directed by Leos Carax, is even more over-the-edge in its content than "Interior Design." Denis Lavant plays a grizzled sort of man/creature in a green suit who emerges periodically from his home in the sewers to terrorize the understandably distraught citizens who inhabit the world above. Unsure of how to cope with such a menace, the Japanese government calls in a French lawyer with a goatee that perfectly matches the creature's to help with the crisis. Unfortunately, this highly stylized segment becomes a grueling, heavy-handed polemic against racism, xenophobia and capital punishment, devoid of charm, grace or even a modicum of entertainment value.
Luckily, in terms of quality, things pick up considerably with "Shaking Tokyo," easily the best of the bunch in both consistency and style. Imaginatively directed by Bong Joon-ho, "Shaking Tokyo" is a lyrical and poetic tale of a "hikikomori" - a person with a pathological phobia of leaving the house - who has to figure out what to do when he falls in love with a woman who, after meeting him once, turns into a hikikomori herself.
Thus, as with many of these omnibus movie packages, "Tokyo!" becomes, ultimately, a thing of bits and pieces, of two episodes that work and one that doesn't (not a bad ratio as these things go, actually). My advice, therefore, would be to watch parts one and three and skip part two altogether.