There is no such thing as a bad genre, just filmmakers quick to yolk science fiction with horror before proceeding to add an appreciable amount of gore that covers for their innate inability to tell a story without the special effects vital to keeping impressionable minds coming back for more. Anyone with a camera mount, a little GoPro, a lot of imagination (and in this case an infinite supply of extension cord) could carry it out. It’s the difference between gimmickry and experimentation; everything that follows the title card was executed in one take and in real time. (I did detect what appeared to be a near-imperceptible transitory cut during one of the film’s many stairway steeplechases, but several slo-mo playbacks still left me uncertain.) Ever get lost in a television show? Kato (Kazunari Tosa), a cafe owner who occupies a flat above the store, bounds the flight of stairs home from work to find his face on the computer screen FaceTiming from the restaurant monitor and claiming to be placing the call two minutes in the future. Scurrying down the stairs, he reenacts the conversation, only this time a friend stops by and is instantly sucked into the surrealism. Is it a dream? Perhaps a friend pulling a prank, or maybe even a clone? More likely than not, it’s screenwriter Makoto Ueda and director Junta Yamaguchi coming up with a unique way of telling a story that mirrors itself every two minutes. My hope that the duo would pull it off without inserting any form of weaponry was eventually dashed, but not before I was fully immersed in both the characters and the unusualness of their situation. (The bloodletting didn’t amount to much more than a squirt of ketchup.) Some things are best left to a viewer’s imagination. The film’s biggest drawback is its need to provide viewers with a concrete explanation. It’s uncertain that a second viewing would withstand a test of logic, but as an endeavor to dramatize the Droste Effect — an image recursively appearing within itself — I can’t think of another film quite like this. Screens as part of the San Diego Asian Film Festival: October 31 at 5:30 pm and November 1 at 8:05 pm @ UltraStar Mission Valley (2021) — Scott Marks
This movie is not currently in theaters.