The best thing about this movie is that it reminded me just how little I want to return to Tokyo.
I hated the soundtrack. It made of this movie not so much about Japan but a non-Japanese use of Japan as background images, while never getting beneath the images. I was getting bored at the repetition after about 30 minutes. It just got worse from then on. The soundtrack was not always distracting, and inappropriate. Sometimes the soundtrack related to the actual scene. But more often you had stuff like rockabilly dancers in Yoyogi dancing to music by chindonya traditional old street musicians. I think all would be insulted by that. Then there were the komuso playing shakuhachi. Only they weren't playing shakuhachi. The only sounds heard was some kind of western synthesizer music or something. I could feel so little of Japan in this movie. But looking at Tokyo from a far, far distance, yes.
There were so many repetitions. I mean the film makers had carte blanche in what they could portray. They could show anything. But I found myself saying, "What? Another woman sleeping, more unhappy people, on the train? How boring. When is this over? There was some easy scandal if you could call it that with some shots of the Kawasaki (which isn't in Tokyo) Iron Penis Festival.
In summary, this is what you get: a bunch of trains in Tokyo. A bunch of unhappy people on trains. The above-mentioned penis festival (mostly people sucking on penis-shaped Popsicles). Some drunken Japanese guys. Some cherry blossoms. A few homeless or abjectly-poverty-stricken people. A couple or so short segments of live music performances. Some crows, not always cawing. Oh, some buildings, often seen from, guess what: a train. I finished watching this ten minutes ago and can't think of anything I haven't already mentioned. Not that I want to.
Boring. Almost painfully so. What a waste of time and money.
I hated the soundtrack. It made of this movie not so much about Japan but a non-Japanese use of Japan as background images, while never getting beneath the images. I was getting bored at the repetition after about 30 minutes. It just got worse from then on. The soundtrack was not always distracting, and inappropriate. Sometimes the soundtrack related to the actual scene. But more often you had stuff like rockabilly dancers in Yoyogi dancing to music by chindonya traditional old street musicians. I think all would be insulted by that. Then there were the komuso playing shakuhachi. Only they weren't playing shakuhachi. The only sounds heard was some kind of western synthesizer music or something. I could feel so little of Japan in this movie. But looking at Tokyo from a far, far distance, yes.
There were so many repetitions. I mean the film makers had carte blanche in what they could portray. They could show anything. But I found myself saying, "What? Another woman sleeping, more unhappy people, on the train? How boring. When is this over? There was some easy scandal if you could call it that with some shots of the Kawasaki (which isn't in Tokyo) Iron Penis Festival.
In summary, this is what you get: a bunch of trains in Tokyo. A bunch of unhappy people on trains. The above-mentioned penis festival (mostly people sucking on penis-shaped Popsicles). Some drunken Japanese guys. Some cherry blossoms. A few homeless or abjectly-poverty-stricken people. A couple or so short segments of live music performances. Some crows, not always cawing. Oh, some buildings, often seen from, guess what: a train. I finished watching this ten minutes ago and can't think of anything I haven't already mentioned. Not that I want to.
Boring. Almost painfully so. What a waste of time and money.
