I drove down to the DFT to watch this last night. Always a great way to spend a Saturday night.
I was nodding off a bit about halfway through the flick, though. It was dark and warm and it was late. But if you ever see the movie you'd understand that you could miss a few lines of dialogue here and there and be totally fine. You won't be lost.
This film is from 1967 and is only now getting its US theatrical release. Critics are going apeshit over it. I thought it was alright. It's a documentary about missing persons in Japan. The Director profiles a missing person and tries to find out why and where they could be. But he doesn't get past square one. He interviews friends, family and co-workers and really comes up with a whole lotta nothing.
Sooooo... the Director changes the whole premise of the film and throws in a bit of a twist ending. It's a comment on the very existence of a "true" documentary. It questions fact vs fiction and the illusory aspect of film-making. Perception. Reality. Meh.
The flick ends up being a hybrid documentary potentially mixed with fictional drama. The viewer ultimately doesn't really know what is what.
It was worth watching, but it's not something I'd tell everyone to rush and see before anything else. If you feel so inclined, it appears to be uploaded to youtube.
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