Tokyo! (Michel Gondry, Leos Carax & Bong Joon-ho, 2008)

A triptych set in Tokyo with three foreign directors, Tokyo! is more cohesive than most city-centred anthologies by virtue of all three pieces having a surreal element at their core. Gondry's is probably the most accessible, with a couple coming to the city and searching in vain for a place of their own, the woman's aimless existence allegorically resulting in a startling physical transformation. Bong Joon-ho's one also has a certain idiosyncratic interest, featuring the Japanese labelled phenomenon that is a hikikomori, i.e. an extreme social recluse, who is forced out of his shell by sudden earthquakes. Between the two, Carax's piece cuts a raucous and anarchic air with Denis Lavant as a sort of human sewer-creature Godzilla, going on a rampage through the city until put on trial, babbling in a language only his lawyer understands about his contempt for the Japanese. While initially arresting, it's the weakest of the three simply because Carax seems to have little faith in saying anything meaningful in just half an hour, and so resorts to shock tactics instead of properly developing the story's latent themes of terror attacks and xenophobia.

6/10