Summary
Wonderful and weird go hand-in-hand in this truly bizarre film that just keeps getting stranger – and that’s just one of the things to love about it.
Well, that took some odd turns. In the spirit of Shunichiro Miki (Funky Forest, The Warped Forest) comes this weird-ass beast from director Yamamoto Masashi (The Voice of Water). Pitching its plotting and comedy firmly in the absurdist camp, WONDERFUL PARADISE (脳天パラダイス) relies firmly on the principal of escalation. Boy does it escalate.
Following some poor financial decisions, Shuji (Seikô Itô) is forced to move his family out of their large mansion in a rich Tokyo suburb. Amidst a sea of cardboard boxes ready for pick-up, his son Yuta (Soran Tamoto) brings a homeless man — who may or may not be dead — into the house. Soon after, his frustrated daughter (Mayu Ozawa) puts out an open invitation on Twitter for a party.
The situation escalates as Akiko (Kaho Minami), their divorced mother, arrives, followed shortly by a gay couple looking for a wedding venue, a pair of lazy movers, an oversexed couple, some kids in need of a shower, and a pair of gardeners with some illicit crops (to name a few).
Their successive arrivals go as expected: the party becomes a festival — complete with food stalls and sideshows — and gets out of hand. Yet nothing can really prepare you for the back half of this film. From a child transforming into a stick, through to a mutant coffee bean growing out of control, the script is equal parts midsummer sex comedy and pure train of thought.
Thanks in part to the cinematography of Shintaro Teramoto, the film retains a vivid colour palette and an energetic set of visuals throughout. In addition to the visual gags, a minimal set of visual effects adds to the fun. During a series of simultaneously climaxing sex scenes, a loud visual and guttural “うっ” accompanies the montage on screen. Without dropping any spoilers, the final scenes contain veritable fountains of blood and a CG statue.
It will all depend on your tolerance levels for wackiness, but there’s some genius lurking in there somewhere. Ending on a glowing statue of a man and dog, it’s evident that like all abstraction, it’s impossible to take any of this literally. The best advice is to just go with the flow and recognise that the cat likes him more than you. Or something.
2020 | Japan | DIRECTOR: Yamamoto Masashi | WRITER: Kaneko Suzuyuki, Yamamoto Masashi | CAST: Seikô Itô, Soran Tamoto, Mayu Ozawa, Kaho Minami | DISTRIBUTOR: Geta Films, Nippon Connection (GER) | RUNNING TIME: 97 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 1-6 June 2021 (Nippon Connection)
