Movie Digest
Tadashi Kobayashi is a director who holds auditions for his new film. Several actors and actresses audition to get their parts, however, it is mostly decided that they will all play as extras in the film. This is because several of the actors aiming for the main role fail to play their part correctly. Does this open audition raise the question of what it means to be an actor to the auditioners? Will Tadashi succeed in making the film?
The Feel-Good Part
This movie is an ode to the cinema most importantly the journey of filmmaking. The process, the actors, and the auditions, it’s entirely focused on bringing the beauty of filmmaking to the forefront. Sion Sono’s movie is all about paying respect to the craft of filmmaking. This film is a genuine rally about the craft of filmmaking. An aspect that is a signature for Sino in his directorial style was void in this film. It tries to give the message that no matter how small your role is on the big screen, it’s always valuable. The comedic ensemble of this movie shows how everyone is an extra in other people’s lives. But at the same time, it is eliciting rage at behaving like extras in our lives. It’s asking us to charge at every shot we get in life with a ferocity unheard of. In real life, this messaging seems hard to follow through, but Sino and his comically large ensemble in the film make an excellent job of convincing us. The cast is so large by the dozens, but the filmmaker makes everyone’s part an equitable percent of the time and impacts the overall story. Handled by any less of a storyteller, this movie would have gone right off the trails.
The Disappointing Factor
Too many characters pile up in the course of this film. For some people who want to keep track of characters in the duration of the film in order to understand the plot better, this would be frustrating. But if you think about it for a moment, you would understand that this is the director’s intention. To overwhelm you as an audience. Maybe because he does not want the audience to get caught up in the details, that is what we end up doing when we try to keep track of how many characters there are in the film. Based on that we subject the roles to extras or main leads. Sono wants you to understand that screen time, depth of role, etc don’t make an actor less as an extra. He manages to do this cleverly by linking up all the humongous cast together at the end of the story.
In-Depth Analysis
Sono’s love for filmmaking has always flowed into his craft in a very vulgar, gore and bloodbath expression. This film had neither of those. This film was also a response to Sono and his frustration at the stagnant Japanese market for films. He recently came out of a life-threatening medical condition and this film seems like a perfect response to that time in his life.
Star Power
The actors in this movie were Sono’s students from his acting classes. This movie was termed as an exam/ assignment to them in their acting course and all actors cast in their roles pulled it off beautifully.
Overall Opinion
This movie won’t be your cup of tea, like Britney Spears once said that the films nominated in Sundance make you use your brain, exactly like that. This movie is about Sono and his love for cinema. It would require an audience that is familiar with his line of work and it’s not for leisure viewing. If you get the drift, pick something else for your watch. Familiarise yourself with the director’s style in movies and then jump into this one. For an average movie consumer, this film would come across as slow. The director indulges in over-the-top metaphoric messaging. For first-time viewers, this would be confusing to understand given the length of the film.
