The last film we saw at the
New York Asian Film Festival was
Big Bang Love: Juvenile A. Also a movie by Takashi Miike, although completely different from
Zebraman or any of his other movies, really. It's a surreal mixture of many elements and styles. I detected hints of Lars von Trier's Dogville and Manderlay in the sparse set design. The sound design had the feeling of David Lynch. The question and answer sections were pure Goddard. But in Miike's hands, even these familiar (to me) elements became other. Strange and entrancing.
Here is a snippet of the
film festival's description of the movie:
What the - ? Just when you thought you had Takashi Miike all figured out he runs you over with a movie like this. Based on a gay manga, Elegy for Boy, this flick kicks off with an aggressively experimental Q&A session between an old man and a kid, explodes into life with an experimental dance performance, and then settles down to tell the story of two men who meet in prison, fall in love and then murder one another. There’s also a rocket ship and a Mayan pyramid.
...
A provocation, a poem, an elegy for lost boys, a ritual for passing into manhood, a Lars von Trier experiment in style – BIG BANG LOVE, JUVENILE A is all those things and more. By the time you reach the ending you’ll understand everything...even the rocket ship. But maybe not so much the pyramid.
I just noticed the description mentions von Trier. See, I wasn't making it up. :) The last sentence totally cracks me up. But, if you understand the rocket ship, you'll understand the pyramid, too.
[photo taken 11/26/2006 in Philadelphia]
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