Shabondama Elegy

This is an intensely provocative experiment filled with avant-garde tone, wacky black humor, philosophical conversations, perverse behaviour, and plenty more bizarre sequences. It is artistically extreme which will evoke a love it or hate it feeling. It is set in Tokyo and portrays a bizarre real/reel life relationship of Jack, a convict on the run from the Yakuza and police. Under pressure, with only few days left to live, Jack moves in with Keiko, a porn star with a mysterious abusive past. They begin a relationship that pushes boundaries to extreme limits and conditions. There's no point in telling the plot further as it gets more bizarre and kinkier with a pinch of Christopher Doyle (Cinematographer of Wong Kar-Wai) like settings and camera work. Aryan Kaganof succeeds in creating a disorientating atmosphere and he maintains it from the opening credits featuring a cameo appearance by exploitation legend Hisayasu Satô's till the climax of the film. Like I said in the start, there is no middle ground and there is no room to fit this or call this "Okay" experience. Decent performance, mental direction, crazy soundtrack, and a plot that weaves into itself to get graphic and upsetting. This is not an easy watch, but I would recommend to those who have a strong stomach for twisted cinema and respect an acute vision, do not skip this piece of experiMENTAL piece of filmmaking.