Left Field Cinema

The credits, taking up the opening two minutes of the film, really do set the tone. The first lot of names appears in fairly ordinary, bland writing except it is shown via strobe lighting as the names flicker in to and out of sight. After about half a second it goes to the next lot of names which go very much the same. Over the following two minutes the changing of slides worth of names grows more and more frequent, the names get more and more colourful and near the end of the credits names start moving around the screen leaving trails. It is practically hypnotic.

The plot follows Oscar. He and his sister Linda lost their parents in an accident when they were both very young and he promised her that he would always look over her. Now they live together in Tokyo, he has become a drug dealer there whilst she has become a prostitute. The film starts as Linda leaves for the club she works at whilst Oscar stays at home. Throughout the film we see everything from Oscar's point of view, through his eyes. He stays at home and trips on some drugs during which we see a mesmerising pattern of lights, colours and shapes. Some while later a friend of his rings the door bell taking him out from the trip - Oscar has to deliver some drugs to a buyer at a nearby club, The Void, so he and his friend both go there through the streets of Tokyo. Throughout this first half hour there is not a single cut (except, if you want to be pedantic, the blinking that occurs every few seconds) - we see everything in real time, or at least what Oscar perceives to be real time. We hear his thoughts and get a taste of the seedy world he lives in. When they arrive at the club Oscar enters alone, but alas he has been sold out to the police by the buyer. Oscar tries to escape from the police in one of the most thrilling, heart-racing scenes I've ever seen but things go wrong and he is shot. It is a deafening boom after which all sound goes silent as Oscar falls to the floor. He is dead. And we now see his body curled up on the floor from above.

Even in death Oscar keeps his promise to his sister and now his soul floats detached from his body. From this point on the film is made up almost entirely, the exclusion being near the end of the film, of two types of scene. The first are sequences where his soul floats around Tokyo. These sequences are completely unedited as he looks in on the lives of all those affected by his death, but mainly his sister. And when I say unedited I mean unedited - to get from one place to another the camera will either float through walls and above the city, or alternatively will head in to something, usually a light bulb during which we are exposed to painfully bright light, and come out the other end somewhere else. The other is flashbacks. But these aren't your traditional flashbacks. Instead they flow stream of consciousness style. Short scenes will jump to other short scenes that look similar visually, link to what is being said or follow on from similar themes. One of my favourite bits in the film is the first time we get a sequence of flashbacks which largely focus on Oscar and Linda when they were very young and their parents were still alive. It is a beautiful, nostalgic sequence which heads in to a shocking climax.

And trust me when I say shocking climax I mean it. I won't disclose what happens but I am very keen to mention the extraordinary effect it had on me during the film. The first time it happened was the scariest moment I have seen in any movie yet. It was truly horrifying. I was recovering for a good couple minutes afterwards but I thought I was over it. It happens again though only 15 minutes or so later and is still horrifying. And this completely coloured the effect of the whole movie for me because throughout I was afraid, paranoid, that Noe would show us the scene again. Every time the music from the scene pops up or I saw Linda dreaming or anything like that I was afraid Noe would cut to it again. He is smart enough not to until very late in to the movie but it really does show the overwhelming effect of this scene to haunt your memory throughout the run time just like it haunts Oscar and Linda.

Though in some of the earlier flashbacks we get scenes of beauty and innocence for the most part the film is very dark and nasty and difficult to watch. When something miserable is happening to a character it really hits you like a ton of bricks - throughout the film Noe shows that he can make raw hatred and aggressive acts and generally depressing circumstances all impact you as if every single one of them was the crux of the film. It must be said that throughout the first half he does insert little comic moments that are very amusing but for the most part the film is extremely challenging. In fact near the end I was worrying that Noe would just leave it at an extremely grim conclusion and say that the film is just about death. But he doesn't. In fact he does something truly remarkable about the film and manages in the last minute or so to turn it around in to a film about life. I will say no more other than it is extremely well handled and that, in its own weird way, this film was far more life affirming (I hate using those two words but they really are appropriate this time) than some many films that usually get given that label.

I thought this was absolutely brilliant. One of the best films I have ever seen without a doubt. I saw it over 24 hours ago and yet scenes keep reverberating around my head every few minutes. It is a powerful film that manages to be both ugly and beautiful as well as utterly hypnotic. It's not for everyone but for me it was terrific.

William Burchett