...Like taking pictures of your feet.

Rating: 3/10 (2 August 2007)

The story of two American ciphers ( At the time of filming - The most irreverent, ironic and untimely stoic comic actor and the quintessential vacant ingénue actress ) with no reason for continuing to live, struggle with their life's meaninglessness whilst in the west's ultimate antithesis, Japan. A vacuous narcissistic film star with no interest in anybody or anything but himself and a recent Western Philosophy major also vacuously narcissistic - have either a father/daughter relationship or an unrequited sexual relationship whilst in Tokyo. It ends as abruptly as it began - When we are suddenly told that it's been a love story and these two narcissist's were actually in love with each other ? My problem with the movie is the Japanese setting and the film makers use of it as somehow indicative of how absurd human life and relationships are to those stuck up westerners with an existential funk. If this is deliberate or not - most of the movie makes fun of or caricatures Japanese people and culture. This for many westerners is very reasonable and in their clichéd understanding all perfectively true - this is why they defend the film and equally why it perpetuates stereotypical clichés. It perpetuates Japan and it's people as completely alien and incomprehensible to myopic westerners whatever their faith, Religious, Nihilist or American.