Memorîzu |
  • Japan • 1995 • 113m •   • Directed by: Kôji Morimoto, Tensai Okamura, Katsuhiro Ôtomo. • Starring: Shigeru Chiba, Hisao Egawa, Kayoko Fujii, Nobuaki Fukuda, Ami Hasegawa, Isamu Hayashi, Yu Hayashi, Michio Hazama, Masato Hirano, Hideyuki Hori, Hiroaki Ishikawa, Takkô Ishimori, Tomoko Ishimura. • Music by: Yôko Kanno, Jun Miyake, Hiroyuki Nagashima.     Memories is made up of three separate stories. In the first, "Magnetic Rose", two space travelers are drawn into an asteroid world created by one woman's memories. In "Stink Bomb", a young lab assistant accidentally transforms himself into a human biological weapon set on a direct course to Tokyo. The final episode, "Cannon Fodder", depicts a day in the life of a city whose entire purpose is the firing of cannons at the enemy.
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Review:
Two of the short films (the first and the third one) are, personally, in my top 10 of short films of every kind; that's the level of the films.
The First One shows the reactions of different people before an opportunity that brings you happiness, but in exchange you must give up to the truth, to believe blindly in this new reality that is a complete fake. One of the characters picks up to sacrifice truth for happiness, the other one prefers truth; so you can compare both sides. And in the end you finish asking yourself: ¿What would I Choose?... All with powerful images, great sceneries, and a very realistic way of animation. It reminds me another masterpiece: "Open Your Eyes" (Alejandro Amenábar).
The Second Story is a comedy that mark us a situation in which a Biogenetic weapon (by the way, a very strange one... "An Stink Bomb") is activated and the security of the hole country (Japan) is in danger. So decisions must be made and to kill the one that ports the weapon looks like the clever option, but USA has inverted his money in the investigation, so kill the boy is not the option. It explores the egoism of a country that prefers to preserve his own interest first, that to watch over the people's health. It brings out the eternal protest against the powerful nations that historically have veil first for his interests than for the human race, and the dangers that this situations brings. Only that, in difference with the common anti imperial movies this is a comedy that makes you laugh in many parts.
The Third and final one introduces us to a world that is in continue state of emergency and that lives for attacking a enemy that, in the whole film, you and them (the characters) can't see; and an enemy that, with certain situations, the creator suggest us that maybe it doesn't exist. The television programs, the paintings, the school, the houses, the common labors, all is just directed to the same direction: attack the enemy, destroy it. You see, in the movie, the live of a boy that only dreams in becoming a weapon shooter, not a weapon builder or a weapon constructor, because the figure of the weapon's shooter is very prestigious and worthy. This is a film that tries to do a profound explore of alienation; and, for that, it finish being a anti war movie and a movie that makes you think a lot about the useless and harmful of war alienation.
Many of the other persons that made an opinion of this movie before me write that the three short films didn't have any kind of connection, but I like to think and think again to create my own version, so I find my own connection in these little masterpieces (hope you coincide with me): "Anti Imperialism"; that applies to the imperial states at any period of history, from the old Rome, passing by the Hitlers Germany to the actual USA.
All of these states uses the alienation (like in the third history shows) to attack the enemies, the real ones and the fake ones (like the newest USA war, in Irak), and in this process is reflected the egoism of a country (like the second history shows), that does all that it can to preserve his power, even if that harms other countries. And in the hole process is involved the question: Do I Choose the Truth or do I choose my own happiness?... and this question goes to all the people in the world in front of the behavior of some powerful nations and people, like in Rwanda:
Do you Choose to Stay Happy at your home and to ignore the bad things that are happening in the world or do you choose the truth (that implies to act)?
Review by Julian Bastidas from the Internet Movie Database.
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