Yukihiko Tsutsumi's Love Collage (a.k.a. Collage of Our Life) was easily the worst film that Filmbrain saw at the festival. He was amazed that the festival committee would select a film that presents such a negative and naive portrait of New York City -- one that seems to cater to the (unjustified) fears that many foreigners have about NYC.
The overlong film starts innocently enough -- budding young photographer Makoto meets quirky, nutty, offbeat Shiziru, and soon the two are in love and living together. Their relationship is more about eating oranges than anything else. (The orange is a symbol of their relationship -- the director includes it about a thousand times, just to make sure you get it.) After some time, Shiziru begs Makoto to teach her how to take pictures. She quickly progresses from poorly framed out-of-focus shots to contest-winning photos. Makoto, jealous of her success, wants to split up. Shiziru says she will move to New York City to wait for him -- he is only to contact her once he becomes a famous photographer. Cut to three years later. Makoto, still not a true photographer, is invited to NYC to see Shiziru's solo show at a Soho gallery. After some hesitation (and more orange eating), he decides to go. At this point the film turns into a poorly crafted mystery/thriller, replete with ignorant, offensive, and racist stereotypes.
No sooner does Makoto arrive in Manhattan than he is set upon by a gang of gun wielding black teenagers who want his money. Refusing, he is pistol-whipped, beaten, stabbed and winds up in the hospital. Waking up in a strange apartment, he soon realizes his savior is an orange Vespa driving, drug dealing gay black man with an Asia fetish (horrendously overacted by Dominic Marcus). He agrees to help Makoto find Shiziru (he has no address, only a picture of a fence in the east village) but not before giving Makoto a gun and laying down some bullshit philosophy about how it means nothing to take another person's life. Lovely.
Finding Shiziru's apartment is just the beginning of the puzzle, for Shiziru is missing as well. A strange young Japanese woman in the apartment offers little in the way of help. Makoto's quest to find her is often met with violent outcomes. Asking for an address in Chinatown finds him being dragged into a basement and beaten senseless by a gang of Triads. Everyone in Tsutsumi's New York carries a gun. Even the art dealer draws a gun on Makoto. The film continues in this fashion, getting more and more ridiculous until the final shoot out and torture by stun gun.
What Tsutsumi appears to be saying is that New York changes people -- even young Japanese girls turn into gun toting killers (all while popping handfuls of pills.) As a dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker, Filmbrain was quite offended by this depiction of NYC. (The inclusion of 9.11 footage is exploitative and reprehensible.) Any concern we may have had for the young couple is tossed out the window in the second half of the film. It's as if the screenplay was an exquisite corpse -- the writer of the second half was given no knowledge of the first half, other than the character names. How else can one explain this radical shift? The film was very popular with teenagers in Japan, and Filmbrain can only wonder what effect this depiction of NYC had on impressionable young minds.
The only interesting thing about the film are the impressive photographs that Makoto and Shiziru take, and their presentation takes up a good portion of the film. Other than that, Filmbrain is clueless as to how or why this got selected for this or any festival. He welcomes any and all discussions or arguments -- maybe he simply missed the point.
Totally agreed with how much of a stinker this film turned out to be. The first half had some quirks and strangeness that I found entertaining, but that all obliterated once the setting crossed the Atlantic. The portrayal of New Yorkers/Americans from this established Japanese TV director was so naive and stereotypical, that I felt almost embarrassed to have enjoyed the first half of the film. Strangely, I found the discontent to be similar, granted on a much larger scale, to the uneasiness that I experienced while watching Lost in translation's depiction of the Japanese.
Posted by: Rotcivnil | 2004.05.17 at 02:25 PM
Filmbrain,
Why do you waste your (precious) time and energy to talk about movie syou didn't like?
As for "impressionable young minds", I find quite offensive that you're suggesting young Japanese teenagers are so stupid they believe "everything in a movie" is true. Maybe you're mistaking with... Americans
Posted by: Nick | 2004.05.17 at 10:45 PM
Years ago, when living in Japan, there was a TV program called "Violent America" that just featured news stories about killing, shooting, raping, etc. Quite a few people took this as gospel about America.
A popular guide book to NYC from the late 80's had a map of Manhattan that had both the lower east side and north of 125th St. greyed out and covered with a drawing of a guy with a knife.
Japanese teenagers may not be stupid, but the film takes itself very seriously. Never having been there, isn't only natural that they might believe what they say (even to a certain extent?)
Posted by: Filmbrain | 2004.05.18 at 03:35 PM
It's a fucking tangerine damnit. If you are going to criticize something, get your information straight.
Posted by: Candace | 2005.03.22 at 11:55 AM
has anyone post this movie in YouTube.com site! i' really wan t to watch it again . but i can not find this film in cambodian market...
Posted by: naraths | 2007.05.22 at 11:05 PM