Tokyo!

There's great potential in a series of short films about one of the world's most interesting and bizarre cities. But whilst these three directors easily tick the latter box, the former is forgotten.

The first film is Gondry's, a favourite director of mine, he was the main reason I was waiting in such anticipation for this film. But sadly I was treated to 20 minutes of a young couple's every day life. that was it. There may have been metaphors hidden deep within the sludge, but even with them, the dialogue and (non-existant) plot could not hold my interest enough to search for them. The cute twist at the end (which I won't spoil) was fantastic, no doubt, but by that point I was simply waiting for the film to end.

The second was that of Leon Carax. Ironically, that film started with it's most interesting point, a scruffy wanderer emerging from the sewers of Tokyo and mildly irritating it's inhabitants was a genuine laugh out loud moment, but as soon as this man (by the name of Merdé) was captured by the police, the film quickly dissolved into a particularly dull episode of Japanese Judge John Deed. I was so bored by it that the attempted heartstring-plucking ending was ruined by my returning desire for the end of the story to see if this final one might be able to save the film.

Bong Joon-Ho's section of the film was mercifully the final one, but also tragically the worst. It had a very interesting premise, of a man voluntarily locked in his house, refusing to even make eye contact with delivery men. And there were a fair few entertaining twists (including the moment where the main character wanders through the city). The ending for this story was also best, putting a giant smile on my face. Yet nevertheless, when the credits rolled my smile turned to a sigh, as I realised the film I waited so long for turned out to almost do the impossible, make three films with such interesting topics and premises so boring.