Movie review: 'Tokyo!'
Tokyo!
3.5 stars
“Tokyo!” is an arresting triptych of films from directors Michel Gondry, Leos Carax and Bong Joon-ho. All set in Tokyo, the films are grounded in a familiar urban landscape populated by cell phones, delivery men and impossibly small apartments. Yet they all tread in the realms of the surreal and absurd, eventually laying bare a range of stark observations about the modern world.
Gondry’s film, “Interior Design,” follows a young couple trying to start a life in Tokyo. As they look for jobs and apartments, they overstay their visit with a friend in her closet-sized studio. In Carax’s “Merde,” a strange creature emerges from the sewers to terrorize the citizens of Tokyo. He looks like a man, but his face, body and facial hair are just contorted enough to brand him a freak. Plus, he eats flowers and speaks in a weird tongue. When he’s tried for bloody murder, his trial sends the country into a rage. Finally, in Joon-ho’s “Shaking Tokyo,” a hardcore hermit is brought out of his mancave after a fateful earthquake, only to find that the world has changed since he last set foot on sidewalk.
Collectively, these strange but memorable little films provoke horror and humor as they capture certain grotesqueries and moral complexities of modern society. (Playing at Sunshine Cinema)
