Japan, Japan

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): **½

Is Japan Japan (as used to be claimed about New York, New York) "so nice they named it twice"? Not really, although there is a kind of duality to the movie: For every good thing you encounter, there's something equally bad. Let's start with the rumor that the production budget was a mere $200. Amazing -- but, as they say, you get what you pay for. What about the hard-core stuff? It's there, all right, but completely un-integrated into the rest of the film. On the other hand, the entire film lacks much integration, so maybe you can appreciate the snatches of tumescent genitalia that occur early on and then forget it about it until the scene featuring Japanese internet porn in which -- but if I tell you what you'll be seeing, I'll spoil the surprise -- which (more duality again) turns out to be perhaps less a turn-on than a gross-out, depending on your particular tastes.

In its style, Japan Japan (the title refers to the fact that our hero Imri has fantasies of emigrating to Japan -- whether for the porn, food or cherry blossoms we never know) comes closest to -- yet hardly near --that of the Swiss filmmaker Lionel Baier (Garçon stupide and Stealth): a kind of rough and rudimentary video-caming of a young gay man who is trying to find himself, as he interacts with friends, family and would-be amours. But Baier while philosophical, questing, intelligent and ironic, Lior Shamriz (Japan Japan's writer/director) is but a patch on all of these things.

There's a scene around midway in this thankfully short movie (65 minute, including credits) in which Imri (played by Irmi Kahn) goes home with a possible john and then provokes a verbal fight. This gives us a clue to the young man's own self-loathing, but little else. The movie is full of such half-steps. And yet it is not uninteresting in the view it gives of today's Israel (damning with faint praise). Along the way we get some lip-synching to Abba, and we meet Imri's roommate, a young woman whose possibly tenuous grasp on reality provides some of the film's odder and more endearing moments.