Movies like Paris, Je t’Aime and the forthcoming
New York, I Love You ask multiple filmmakers to create short
films on a given theme, set in a given neighborhood of a storied city.
It’s a chance for directors and audiences to have a little fun, riffing
on the history, stereotypes, and endless possibilities presented by a
major city.
Tokyo! is a similar project, minus the fun (that perky
exclamation point notwithstanding). The movie—an “omnibus
triptych,” the movie’s website pretentiously asserts—features
three shorts set in Tokyo from directors Michel Gondry (Eternal
Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), Leos Carax (The Lovers on the
Bridge), and Bong Joon-ho (The Host). What could two French
directors and a South Korean have to say about Tokyo, and why should I
be interested? I have no idea, and I’m not sure the directors involved
with Tokyo! do either.
These three works lack any kind of thematic through-line, and simply
placing them end to end does not inspire any particular insights about
Japan’s largest metropolis. Instead, we’re treated to a very smug, very
French spoof on monster films, bracketed by two almost-cloying
interpretations of young love in the city.
The most interesting work here is Gondry’s Interior Design,
which neatly captures a young woman’s underappreciated and ultimately
unsuccessful efforts to support her filmmaker boyfriend. Interior
Design is based on a comic by Gabrielle Bell called Cecil and
Jordan in New York—there are multiple levels of translation
at work here, from the adaptation of the comic to the change in locales
and languages, and while it’s handily the most successful of the three
shorts presented, fans of Gondry may get the sense that he’s not trying
particularly hard.
Leos Carax’s contribution, about a deranged, wall-eyed Frenchman
named “Merde” who emerges from the sewer to rampage through the streets
of Tokyo, is simply no fun to watch, regardless of how many stereotypes
it lampoons. Bong Joon-ho, meanwhile, takes a lovely look at the
obsessively ordered life of a hikikomori, a shut-in who refuses
to leave the house—but when a pretty pizza delivery girl shows up
at his door, a trite love story intrudes on the OCD stillness that is
the short’s strength.
If pressed to come to some sort of conclusion about Tokyo based on
the films included here, one might determine that it’s a little bit
adorable, a little bit pathological, and a little bit shy. Or, more
sensibly, you might conclude that Tokyo!‘s imperfect parts don’t
just add up to a meaningful whole.