chumpchampion

Sorry for the posting delays this week but I had the unfortunate illness of a weekend hangover that lasted into this week. Bouncing back from alcohol poisoning used to be so much easier when I was a young chap. Anyway, enough with the excuses and now onto the creative business…

You may remember a few weeks ago I mentioned a film to be on the lookout for called Tokyo! as part of my first Two Trailer Day Thursday segment. Well as luck would have it and through the courtesy of Giant Robot’s Film Matters series, last night I was able to attend an advance screening of Tokyo! and it’s three short films directed by visionairies Michel Gondry, Léos Carax, and Bong Joon-ho. From Gondry’s initial mix of youth and whimsy and how they interact in reality in his short “Interior Design”, to Carax’s outrageous reimagining/ode to Godzilla with “Merde”, to Bong’s restrained poetic tale of a hikikimori (shut-ins who have dropped out of the world of social interaction in favor of confining themselves to their apartment) who longs for someone on the outside in “Shaking Tokyo”, this three piece tale full of humor, humanity, and of course, Tokyo proves to be a film definitely worth visiting.

And not only was the film an absolute treat in itself, but the audience was also treated to a Q&A with director and star of the film’s first piece “Interior Design”, Michel Gondry and Ayako Fujitani (beautiful in person and in the film by the way).

“Interior Design” Director Michel Gondry and star Ayako Fujitani during the Q & A.

Among the highlights from the Q&A:

• Gondry was the last director to come aboard the project despite being arguably the most well known of the trio and jokingly stated that maybe he had the “smallest budget to work with” since he was the final one to join.
• Each short is roughly 30 minutes in length. But upon completion of each segment, each director would “fight” for additional seconds added to their piece.
• The order of the three shorts was not pre-determined prior to filming, but rather found through editing the entire film.
• Without giving away too much, actress Ayako Fujitani at one point in filming was painstakenly painted blue from head to toe for special effects purposes but many of those scenes were cut from the film.
• You can be arrested in Tokyo for filming on the street.
• Gondry’s next film will indeed be The Green Hornet co-written by and starring Seth Rogen.
• Another film rumored to be attached to Gondry, Masters of Time and Space, will not be happening with him directing.
• One of Gondry’s favorite collaborators is Spike Jonze who made a short film in a hotel with him, his girlfriend at the time, Spike’s brother Sam Speigel (a.k.a. Squeak E. Clean of the N.A.S.A. crew), and Sofia Coppola, in which they would film a scene and pass along the dv cam with the latter not knowing what the other had shot except for the final frame in hopes of continuing the story. What they came up with was “absurd and probably not enjoyable by audiences.”

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Tags: Ayako Fujitani, Bong Joon-ho, coverage, event, film, Film Matters, Giant Robot, Leos Carax, Michel Gondry, N.A.S.A., opening, Seth Rogen, Sofia Coppola, Spike Jonze, Squeak E. Clean, The Green Hornet, Tokyo

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 10th, 2009 at 6:04 pm and is filed under something to hear, something to look at, somewhere to go. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.