What have you watched recently?

Turtles Are Surprisingly Fast Swimmers - from Miki Satoshi, who also directed the irreverent Instant Swamp. This is similarly irreverent. Light, quirky and loosely plotted, it follows a despondent 23 year old Suzume who becomes a spy after finding a really really small advertisement. It's nonsense, and barely any plot, but it's endearingly silly. Very funny at times (including some brilliantly timed and surreal visual punchlines), directed with plenty of energy and overall thoroughly enjoyable. Light and throwaway as anything, but well worth a watch.

Also, they should stop localising subtitles. It's just wrong referring to what is clearly a pile of yen as dollars.

Memories of Matsuko



On a continuing search for contemporary Japanese films of note, heard about this a bit when director Tetsuya Nakashima's excellent Confessions was released a few months ago. A remarkable film, albeit one I had a few issues with. The art design is just fantastic - influences are wide (dig the retro Hollywood opening credits), the colour palette broad, the effects work pleasantly surreal, and every scene is filled with energy and colour. Then there's the music - again, a varied lot. There's unique takes on everything from Disney style sing alongs (Happy Wednesday will get stuck in your head) to Japanese idol music through a strange pseudo hip-hop song about prison.

It's a purposefully melodramatic film following the life of Matsuko (an excellent Miki Nakatani) and her many ups and downs. There's a brilliant supporting cast, and while some of the subplots work better than others, the mix of styles - there are segments in the style of everything from Japanese family dramas to yakuza dramas through film noir - ultimately creating a very satisfying, if episodic, whole. And the end actually gets pretty emotional - there's a lot played for laughs here, but you're always sucked back into the troubled reality of the situation moments later.

It's a mix of Amelie, Millennium Actress and Forrest Gump, and it's extremely cine-literate throughout. It's the kind of film that, if it wasn't in Japanese, could have achieved significant crossover appeal if it got the release it deserved. It's rambling, epic and a bit shambolic - but it also pulls you into the curious story of one woman, and refuses to look and sound anything less than spectacular throughout.