Tokyo!

(France/Japan/South Korea/Germany | 2008 | 110 mins | 35mm)

35mm

San Francisco Premiere

Exec. Producers: Kenzo Horikoshi, Hiroyuki Negishi, Yuji Sadai
Producers: Masa Sawada, Michiko Yoshitake
Writer: Bong Joon-ho, Leos Carax, Michel Gondry
Cinematographer: Caroline Champetier, Jun Fukumoto, Masami Inomoto
Editor: Nelly Quettier
Music: Etienne Charry
Cast: Ayako Fujitani, Teruyuki Kagawa, Denis Lavant, Ryo Kase

NOTE: The San Jose screening of TOKYO! has been cancelled.

Ah, Tokyo! The capitol of quirk looks even more surreal when envisioned by three of cinema's most inventive directors: Michel Gondry (ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND), Leos Carax (POLA X) and Bong Joon-ho (THE HOST).

Gondry's INTERIOR DESIGN is the story of Hiroko and Akira, a young couple just arrived in Tokyo. Akira, an aspiring filmmaker, takes a job as a gift wrapper and scolds Hiroko for her lack of ambition. Hiroko, it seems, can do nothing right, until one day she undergoes a wondrous physical transformation that brings with it an unexpected sense of purpose.

In MERDE (French for shit), Carax's title character—something like a bedraggled, malevolent leprechaun—emerges from the sewer to wreak havoc on Tokyo's tidy streets. A wily, unrepentant fugitive, his journey from underground to media sensation pokes holes in the nation's complacency, but not before dredging up the unsettling ghosts of Japan's imperial past.

Finally, Bong's SHAKING TOKYO focuses on a hikikomori (a Japanese shut-in) who hasn't set foot outside his house in ten years. Obsessively maintained, his carefully constructed ecosystem of empty pizza boxes, toilet paper rolls and bottled water is thoroughly upended when a comely pizza delivery girl comes to call.

In the tradition of NIGHT ON EARTH and PARIS JE T'AIME, TOKYO! delves beneath a city's glossy, high-tech façade to uncover the messy, complicated human relations at its core.

-- Sharon Mizota

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