Air Doll

Sex dolls are a thing now, aren't they, Richard Herring?! And for certain corners of the world a part of everyday life. For some even part of the family: not just a sex doll but a surrogate family member for the lonely to love, cherish and woo-hoo as a significant other.

That's the life of Hideo (Itsuji Itao) anyway, and his charming "wife" Nozomi (perky-breasted Bae Doona - though initially an actual blow-up doll). The couple live together is Hideo's small apartment, him working long hours away at a restaurant, coming home to Nozomi to have dinner with her and then take her to bed, always remembering to remove and clean the detachable vagina afterwards.

That is until one day when the naked Nozomi - again left in Hideo's bed - wakes up and becomes human. As Hideo has a fully stocked wardrobe of clothes for her in true Barbie doll fashion, she is able to get herself dressed and walk the streets...and browse the local video store...and get herself a job in said video store.

Nozomi soon carves out an actual life out for herself, becoming a part of the team and getting intimate with work colleague Junichi (ARATA). Hideo soon is just someone she has to make sure she is waiting for in bed each night. Though eventually Hideo soon has no need for Nozomi - finding himself a newer model. Nozomi, therefore, reveals her new trick and promptly walks out on him, straight to the bed of Junichi. But while becoming human in form, Nozomi is still far from human in soul, resulting in tragic consequences at her lack of understanding of human life.

"Air Doll" is the exact type of film you would expect to come from Japan, being unusual, perverted, but with an interesting layer sitting beneath the surface. Nozomi looks at Tokyo life from an outsider's perspective and maybe isn't always too impressed with human kind, least of all Hideo. Dolls are an important feature of Japanese culture which has a penchant for creating mascots and characters that become almost real for their admirers; taking various forms and styles as if celebrities reinventing themselves.

Like a baby with a teddy bear, Hideo creates a character for Nozomi that is his artificial ideal, rather than trying to interact with other humans, mirroring the hikikomori phenomenon of the recluse in Japanese society. As with the Puppet Master in "Ghost in the Shell", Nozomi is the child of a detached society where humans have rejected basic human interaction.

Written and directed by Japan's foremost director Kore-eda Hirokazu, alongside "After Life" this is one of his oddest films, and unusual in his oeuvre, featuring more explicit scenes than one would expect from him. The look and feel of the film is also different from his other works, feeling more like Shunji Iwai or Jun Ichikawa. And while a distinctly Japanese film, the cinematography comes from Taiwanese Lee Ping-bin, with South Korean leading lady Bae Doona taking on the title role.

Speaking of the aforementioned, the cinematography reflects the artifice of the metropolis as Nozomi wanders the streets of the lesser-known parts of Tokyo, with an evening twilight feel throughout. Bae Doona also gives a believable (if it can be that) performance as a blow-up doll come to life. Her movements are naturally unnatural, and perhaps the casting of a non-Japanese suited the outsider gaze necessary for the role.

Kore-eda takes his unconventional family dramas to a new level with "Air Doll", and perhaps in doing so he has made his worst film. The everyday is what works best for him, and "Air Doll" of course lacks that. But the worst of an excellent bunch isn't too bad, and while lacking reality, there is a realism in Nozomi and the scenario that she finds herself in. The end for Nozomi is one that will always prove the case when dealing with that which is disposable. But perhaps humans are now treated this way too easily.

London Korean Film Festival 2012

Recently, Korea has been put on the map – in a pop culture-sense, of course; Korea has been on the map in a cartography-sense now for some millennia – by a tubby man jumping around like an idiot. But no, not that one with the huge DVD collection and very good golf handicap; but by one demonstrating his favoured sexual position in the medium of dance.

So, now everyone loves everything Korean, let’s have a film festival. The annual London Korean Film Festival is now in its seventh year and is great as you get a free man-bag with every viewing. I’ve been to the festival in previous years – unable to recall what I saw – and again this year went to some of the one-off screenings at various cinemas around London in what is quite an extensive bill put on by the Korean Cultural Centre this outing.

Starting off with some K-animation, I saw ‘The King of Pigs’: a film with the character design of Bevis and Butthead and the animation of Thunderbirds. At their school, Jong-suk and Kyung-min were subject of a hierarchical system that keeps them with the lowest of the low, while those up high keep tormenting them on a daily basis. Around two decades later, the pair of school friends meet up for the first time in years to discuss their old classmate Chul who had stood up for the pair all those years ago. Fighting back, the enraged Chul wants to ensure that those in power will not look back on their school days with fond memories.

As stated, there is something very Mike Judge about the look and feel of the characters, though this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Also, the digital animation tries to create realistic actions in the characters, but instead leaves them bouncing along like odd puppets on a string. This creates some laughs to start, but quickly fades into the background as the film progresses.

There is little original in the storyline: films reminiscing over life-defining moments at school are common place and the characters are quite typical of bullying drama. But the ‘King od Pigs’, by director is Yeun Sang-ho is an entertaining enough social commentary about the haves and the have-nots and the places it leads us. Though do ignore the last line of the film – a meal should end with cheese, not a piece of art.

Next up and finally is ‘As One, Korea’, the story of the 1991 World Table Tennis Championship in which North and South Korea set aside their differences for a game of table tennis. Tired of always losing to those pesky Chinese, the two nations decide to make a once-in-a-generation decision to reunite the two countries divided by the 38^th Parallel.

Cue an opening half hour of cultural differences with hilarious consequences, leaving the actresses lumped with playing the roles of our friends in the North to have less fashionable haircuts, including everybody’s favourite electrocuted-until-she-pisses-herself actress, Bae Doo-na. Starting off as a comedy depicting the straight-edge and regimented North having to stand beside their wilder, Southern cousins, it then turns into a sports film, complete with musical montages as the two groups of players learn to get along and start winning some table tennis matches. Then, of course, the politics in thrown in with the North Korean players scolded for their drinking of alcohol and reading of jazz pamphlets, before it all gets a little bit too sentimental towards the end.

How much of all this actually took place, I don’t know. The end result did actually occur, though (spoiler alert!) France finished with the bronze medal, not Britain, as the film suggests (this is the LONDON Korean Film Festival, after all), though the story of how we got there is no doubt exaggerated in places. Though the unification of nations for sporting reasons will naturally bring with it dispute – imagine if England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland decided to unify for a football team at say, the Olympic Games. The result would be disastrous.  

But politics and reality aside, ‘As One, Korea’ is a good and entertaining film that – sentimentality aside – doesn’t get bogged down too much in one focus, and is for all to enjoy, Capitalists and Communists alike…though probably not the Communists.

Happy with my free bag, other commitments meant I did not get to see anywhere near as many of the films as I would have liked, though with around thirty films shown in little over a week, I’d be mad to want to sit in a darkened room that much.