Funky Forest: The First Contact

Nothing can prepare you even if you get a description. Very bizarre set pieces with little or no connection that was apparent to this viewer. The segments sometimes have weird grotesque imagery and sometimes are extremely commonplace. The stories follow no conventional narrative form and end in unexpected ways.

While the film doesn't have the drive of an equally strange film, "Survive Style +5", it does have a pleasant tone despite the repeated scenes with fleshy deformities, men with cow-like nipples, giant orifices and excrement like excretions. A lot of people will be turned off but the film holds a number of unexpected delights. I, for one, was delighted to hear Asano sing the Captain Harlock theme song.

Overlong, perhaps better seen in pieces, but a good film.

Funky Forest: The First Contact is a movie that defies description. It is so uncategorizable, so jaw-droppingly strange, so unlike anything you've ever seen before that you can't help but either laugh and/or shake your head in disbelief for most of its 2 and a half hour running time. The movie has no plot. Instead there are a series of loosely interconnected scenes involving various characters who say and do the strangest things. I was particularly fond of the three female co-workers who visit a spa and take turns telling each other hilariously inane stories. On top of that there is uber-hottie Tadanobu Asano, bursts of animation, unexpected song and dance numbers and some truly disturbing sci-fi elements. For the sheer weirdness factor alone, this is essential viewing.

With a project like this, it is as likely that it is a random goof as something with some structure. It could be both.

As this was sent to me by a fellow viewer, and because I am so inclined, I tend to see structure. And what I see I like — a lot. It is essentially a series of sketches, some broken up and scattered throughout. Others continue from or extend situations and characters we know. Perhaps these sketches need to be described a bit, as they are what most people will see.

They are tiresome in their humor. Unless you are Japanese, the satire will be lost. But they are amazingly clever in terms of the imagery: striking, unexpected and sometimes disturbing. With all the mastery in the images, they are surprisingly uncinematic, as if this was made not by real filmmakers but by TeeVee or music video people. There are little dramas of teen angst and performance played out, as apt as any John Hughes movie. But when it comes to this sort of thing, my benchmark is "Lily Chow Chow."

But it is the structure that matters here. The large arc here is the visit to Earth by an alien, we see at the very beginning. What we see is what he would experience of us if he encountered a Japanese high school. The main characters here are three girlfriends and three brothers. Their baseline skits are set in ordinary reality with exaggerated behavior. Layered on that are diverse performances, many of dance that they do that get as abstract as the rest I will describe. Layered on that are their numerous dreams and illustrated stories. And layered on that is the story of and references to making the movie.

Any of these is likely to be less or more abstract. They are woven together by recurring characters (including strange parasitic creatures that can be played musically). At the higher level of the dreams and outer framing, we have the same actors playing multiple roles. I haven't taken the time to map them out as I think there is no special insight other than the quantum blurring.

This is an adventure in exploring new cinema by structure. It is just an experiment, so we shouldn't expect it to change lives. But I can easily see how someone can refine and master these techniques to do so.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

NAISU NO MORI - FIRST CONTACT may well be the strangest film I've ever seen... a 2.5 hour head-scratcher combining the efforts of three director/writers into a whole with no discernible plot! the film is essentially a number of short stories or vignettes, mixed together and occasionally crossing over (Tadanobu Asano and Susumu Terajima appear in a large number of the scenes). The content of these pieces is extremely varied, and beyond unpredictable. There's bits of stand-up comedy, animation, music, dance and other moments that are entirely inexplicable. We spend quite a bit of time inside character's daydreams, and we make first contact with some very odd little aliens. The film even has its own commercials and (thankfully) a 3 minute intermission.

This is undoubtedly an avante-garde film, I don't know if calling it "arthouse' is appropriate because it's so silly and funny (not like the kind of austere beard-strokers that one usually calls "arthouse"). There is some truly mad stuff going on, but there doesn't appear to be any deeper meaning or message to any of it... in fact I'm not sure what the "purpose" of the film is at all, except for the film-makers to go nuts.

At 150 minutes it must be admitted that the film outstays its welcome a little... sitting in a theatre for that long it's nice to have *some* sort of narrative to get carried away on (it's enough time to spin quite an epic). NAISU NO MORI feels almost like it should be an ambient film - on at a club or something. I can't think of any more eclectic film in cinematic history. Think SURVIVE STYLE 5+ meets Kitano's GETTING ANY meets NAKED LUNCH meets Alejandro Jodorowsky meets Aphex Twin, and you're getting somewhere near where the film is at!

Funky Forest… I have waited 1 night to let this all sink in.

First of all a little back story. One year ago, I went to the New York Asian Film Festival and saw the film, Taste of Tea. This was a delightful family story which I surprising loved, even though I am the kind of guy that will never turn down the cheesy Hollywood summer block buster.

One year latter I have returned to the Film Festival. Although in New York this festival is packed with violent Korean films, Funky Forest remains the festival's logo for its T-Shirts. So the question you should be asking is, what is all the hype about? Strange foreign film at an underground festival that sells out every show it plays. The hype of course revolves around 1 man, Katsuhito Ishii, or perhaps that's one mans unique brain.

Funky Forest as mentioned by the commenter before me is like watching a Cronenberg comedy. Nevertheless it goes farther then that, it is like if Cronenberg, Lynch, and M. Barney, all had their head infused with each other and then Adam Sandler hit them with a silly stick in till the being could not breath.

If anyone is supposed to summarize what the film is about, then all commenter on this site will fail…miserably. One of my friends described it as watching youtube.com shorts for 3 hours. I would agree it's a whole bunch of shorts, like a pulp film in a way. The stories are kind of connected but you are enjoying the show more then trying to figure out where it all hangs in the balance of the film.

I am giving this film a 9/10 because it did get a little long and tedious, but nevertheless the film had so many memorable moments that it is well worth anybodies time.

All that I am left to say is that as I left the theater I had an urge to buy the DVD, or a soundtrack, but instead all that was on the counter for me was a T-Shirt, and so of course, I bought it.

SEE THE FILM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, Enjoy guitar brothers, mole brothers, little Asian girls, planet pico, dreamscapes, 3 babbling girls, and of course Homeroom!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!