By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.8 cats
Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
Starring: Arata | Du-na Bae | Itsuji Itao | Jô Odagiri | Sumiko Fuji
Original language title: Kûki Ningyô
Country: japan
Year: 2010
Running time: 116
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1371630/
Michael says: “One day an inflatable air doll, a substitute for sexual pleasure, wakes up to find she has a heart. She is self-animated, self-aware, and filled with wonder as she discovers the world around her. On a meandering sojourn around the neighborhood she wanders into a video rental store and gets herself a job, carefully concealing the fact that she, in fact, made of plastic and filled with air. She returns home each night before her owner arrives from work, but soon grows tired of the sexual acts he performs with her and becomes more fascinated by the parade of humanity that she encounters each day; most particularly the young man with whom she works at the video store. Of course, as we all know, along with wonder and delight, life brings sadness, pain and heartbreak. After she accidentally tears a hole in her arm and her true nature is revealed to her co-worker, he hastily tapes her up and re-inflates her with his own breath. It is at this point that she truly learns what it means to be human, as she falls in love with her benefactor. Her further adventures lead her to an elderly man in the park on a respirator, a woman struggling against aging, a little girl and her harried father, and the man who created her.
“Kore-eda is a master filmmaker, weaving elements of loneliness and alienation into this charming story about the creation of a new life. In parallel to the air doll’s inflatable nature, we see a series of humans who are empty inside, desperately seeking something to fill the void in their hearts. Duna Bae is magnificent as the innocent experiencing life for the first time. Her large eyes grow wider with each miraculous sight she sees, and she capably conveys the joy, confusion and pain of living with each move she makes. Despite the wacky and somewhat salacious premise, Kore-eda is such a life-affirming personality that you know you’re in for something special. 4 1/2 cats”
Chris says: “For Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda, this is certainly not an obvious follow-up to masterful familial drama STILL WALKING. After all, the main character here is an inflatable sex toy that one morning magically comes to life. It sounds incredibly silly on paper (and I dread any potential American remake), but Kore-eda is a serious filmmaker, and this foray into pure fantasy is affectionate and rather poignant. A lot of the credit goes to Korean actress Doona Bae (THE HOST), who is perfectly cast as the titular character. Cute as a button in her tentative movements and little maid’s uniform, she plays the role as an innocent discovering a strange new world, learning by mimicking everything around her. Kore-eda stretches the premise by introducing additional characters to symbolize the philosophical implications of what it’s like to be an air doll: isolated and expected to serve a function. As a result, for me, the film loses some of its mojo along the way; I would have almost preferred two hours of Bae just bouncing around Tokyo—in those moments, AIR DOLL is as light and graceful as a feather but compelling enough to hold your attention. 4 cats”
Jason says: “AIR DOLLl is mostly sweet, as well as a little strange, and has a charming lead performance courtesy of Bae Doo-na. There’s a clear metaphor for modern life lurking behind its fantasy premise, but once that’s out in the open, there’s not much else to it.
“Hideo (Itsuji Itao) is middle-aged and single, and based on in his home life, it’s not hard to see why: When he comes home at the end of the night full of complaints, they are made to his inflatable love doll ‘Nozomi’, which he dresses, sits at the table, and moves around the apartment. One morning, as he leaves for work, the doll sits up on its own, eventually walking out of the apartment and into the city. Although her movements are initially jerky and awkward, she (Bae Doo-na) soon learns to imitate the people around her (and cover her seams with make-up!). Eventually, she gets a job in a video store, where she catches the eye of Junichi (Arata), a young clerk.
“Filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda (working from a manga by Yoshiie Goda) doesn’t disguise the point he’s trying to make, that many of us are as hollow figuratively as Nozomi is literally. There are multiple cases of the dialog running ‘I’m empty inside’/’me too’, with varying degrees of solemnity. Once that’s out of the way, though, Kore-eda and company seem to struggle to elaborate on it. Indeed, the filmmakers seem very uneasy about where to go next; they don’t have much of a story about what it takes to fill the void inside, and they probably don’t want AIR DOLL to be about the specifics of how Nozomi came to life or what that life implies, lest that overshadow the point they’re making about modern life leaving people feeling empty.
“Instead, they wind up unspooling a bizarre and unpleasant sequence of events. I can grasp the idea Kore-eda is going for here; it’s a mirror image of the cutesy scenes of Nozomi being just adorably ignorant in the first act. Most of the bits work and have a point; unfortunately, the ones that don’t flop so spectacularly as to blot the rest out. Kore-eda is already working on a potentially tricky high-wire with the film’s mix of innocence and kink, so the last act winds up being a step farther than I’m willing to go.
“The movie faltering is not the fault of the cast. Bae Doo-na is game for whatever Kore-eda throws at her, doing a very nice job of building a personality for Nozomi after the too-cutesy first act. She’s not quite able to overcome the movie’s sillier moments, but when she’s given a moment to show Nozomi becoming a more complete person, she always nails it. Itsuji Itao and Arata are quite good as the men in her life, complementary cases of isolation who seem straightforward enough, although they have plenty of human complexity. There’s also a larger cast of characters that Nozomi encounters repeatedly who do a nice job of fleshing out her world.
“They’re all lonely, of course, many just existing as more examples of the concept of being empty inside. After a while, that drains the life from the movie as surely as a puncture will release the air from Nozomi, and the cute inflatable woman gags can’t quite pump it back up fast enough. 3 cats
“Seen 8 June 2010 in Landmark Kendall Square #2 (first-run)”