The hapless and pathetic Ryohei Suzuki (Hiroki Hasegawa) becomes obsessed with an unusual turtle in Sion Sono’s LOVE & PEACE
FESTIVAL OF NEW JAPANESE FILM: LOVE & PEACE (RABU & PISU) (ラブ＆ピース) (Sion Sono, 2015)
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Saturday, July 16, 7:30
Series runs July 14-24
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org
love-peace.asmik-ace.co.jp
Unpredictable Japanese writer-director Sion Sono defies expectations once again with Love & Peace, a wacky tokusatsu tale that has been gestating for more than two decades but has finally hit the big screen, with all its crazy madness. One of six films Sono (Himizu, Why Don’t You Play in Hell?) Sono made in 2015, Love & Peace is a deranged romp about Ryohei Suzuki (Hiroki Hasegawa), a thirty-three-year-old onetime pop star who quit making music because no one came to his three concerts. So instead he became a clerk and Japan’s poster child for failure, a laughingstock made fun of everywhere he goes. He is a hapless, pathetic fool who walks around with a perpetual stomachache, his coworkers put stickers on him that say “Hazardous Waste,” and is castigated on television. “His name repulses me,” one television announcer says. “Why does he exist?” demands another. But Ryo’s life takes a turn when he becomes obsessed with a tiny turtle he names Pikadon, a Japanese phrase that references the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombs; “pika” means “brilliant light,” and “don” means “boom.” Through some magic initiated from a very strange man (Toshiyuki Nishida) who operates a kind of haven for misfit toys, Pikadon starts growing, morphing into an animated character, and as he gets bigger, so does Ryo’s career, as he goes back to making music. Through it all, he is supported by mousey coworker Yuko (Kumiko Aso), although he has no idea how to pursue romance. By the way, if any of that plot description made sense, we apologize, because Love & Peace makes very little sense, but that doesn’t prevent it from being a lot of fun in a completely berserk, bonkers way.
Love & Peace is being promoted as a family film, but it’s not exactly typical fare for kids. In true Takashi Miike style, Sono stirs a huge pot that incorporates elements from Godzilla and Pokemon, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the Quay Brothers, Babe and Ted, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Toy Story, with a soundtrack that relies heavily on Walter Carlos’s march from A Clockwork Orange. It also features a collection of talking dolls and animals that would be outcasts in Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, including the downtrodden Maria, the toy robot PC-300, and the worried Sulkie the Cat. In the meantime, Japan is getting excited about the 2020 Summer Olympics, which will be held in Tokyo, believing it will bring prosperity to all, but that pie-in-the-sky Pollyanna attitude is a pipe dream that glosses over the country’s various economic and social dilemmas. Well, maybe. We’re not really sure quite what happens, but we couldn’t look away for a second. Love & Peace is screening on July 16 at 7:30 at Japan’s tenth annual Japan Cuts Festival of New Japanese Film and will be introduced by Sono via video. For an added treat, the North American premiere of Arata Oshima’s documentary The Sion Sono is being shown on July 16 at 2:30, followed by the New York premiere of Sono’s sci-fi drama The Whispering Star. Japan Cuts runs July 14-24, consisting of more than two dozen films, Q&As, a panel discussion, and more.