Tokyo Magic Hour

I also saw this at the San Francisco International Film Festival this year, but had an opposite reaction from that of the previous reviewer. I found this to be a simply gorgeous and completely abstract hour of images, music and some poems. During the Q&A, we found out that it actually had to do with the conflicts between many nations in Asia. However, I'm sort of ignorant to that, especially as abstractly presented here, so I just went along for the psychedelic ride! I. Loved. It!

It may have also benefited from having been paired with "The Year of Living Vicariously" which is, at worst, a talking head gab-fest! I found it quite a relief to just sit back and drift off into the imagery of "Tokyo Magic Hour" after having spent the previous hour of buzzing language and flying subtitles. (I don't want to speak to the catalog description or references to Derek Jarman, as I can't really say that I am a big Jarman fan to begin with.)

Rai needs to get his eyes and his head checked. He obviously knows nothing about Derek Jarman or any other experimental films. Muhammad's TOKYO MAGIC HOUR is a stunning Asian re-interpretation of the Western avant-garde. Muhammad engages the queer perspective of Jarman with his own combination of image and poetic text (a re-working of Jarman's ANGELIC CONVERSATION), and juxtaposes this with sequences that refer explicitly to the American Underground and Japanese experimentalists. But it's not a compendium, it's a sharp, insightful analysis into experimental film from a uniquely talented Asian filmmaker. Watch this movie!

I really wish I had paid closer attention to the description in the festival catalog. They tried to warn me, but I saw a reference that compared this film(maker) to Derek Jarman and thought, hmmm? maybe it will make me think new thoughts.

How disparaging of Mr. Jarman's memory to be connected to this piece of useless video crap. The director apparently couldn't even take the time to shoot his own meaningless video imagery, but had 6 others shoot whatever they wanted in Japan/Tokyo and then he put it through every contortion Final Cut Pro offers and claimed he had made ART!!!

He really needs to return to his previous profession as a lawyer, because between this film and the shoddily edited documentary "The Year of Living Vicariously" which was screened with it I can't really imagine he can afford to live on his "art" for much longer.