Anyway, I kind of figured that it'd be a nice language test for me, as it is largely in German with a little English and Japanese sprinkled in for good measure. Unfortunately, the print has apparently been touring the country for 30 years now, with an image that kept jumping around, moving in and out of focus, and a soundtrack that was garbled and bass-y. I still managed to get most of it, I think.The thrilling plot: There is an old German couple, and the dude is dying. They go to visit their grown kids, who are all douches. The lesbian lover of their daughter is the only non-douche, who takes the old German wife to a mysterious Japanese dance called 'butoh'. So, then the wife dies for some reason. The old husband wigs out and goes to Japan to visit his son, who has a swank place in Shinjuku with a Sharp TV (what!), hentai comics, and lots of isolation. Surprise, Japan is scary and weird if you're foreign! The old German guy ends up in Kabuki-cho at a soapland, lathered up by two horse-faced Japanese prostitutes, until he cries. He is kinda sad, and his son is also a jerk, so he wanders around wearing his wife's clothing and being generally bizzarre. Then one day, he meets a chick who is pretty much Bjork, and they talk about nonsensical things in broken English. Also, they butoh-dance together. Bjork and the old guy go to Mt. Fuji, where the old guy butoh-dances with his dead wife, and then he dies, too. Roll credits.
I really wanted to like this movie. Really, I did. It was supposed to be pretty okay, if critics are to be believed. But it suffered from the curse known as 'being helmed by a female director', and also it appeared to be shot in HDV or something. It was very 'Lost in Translation'-esque, and I am wondering if being in Korea for awhile has made me less tolerant of Western stories which make the East seem so mysterious, impenetrable and magical. Or perhaps it is just Doris Doerrie being a crap direktorin.
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