Beloved veteran filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda triumphantly returns to the Festival with his first work of fantasy. The director, who usually explores subjects ripped from the headlines, now makes a bold move into the world of the surreal. Air Doll was adapted from Gouda's Philosophical Discourse, the Pneumatic Figure of a Girl, a twenty-page graphic novel drawn by Gouda Yoshiee, but the film still bears Kore-eda's signature fascination with human mortality.
A story of love and frailty, Air Doll takes the essence of what it means to be human and distills it down to its purest form in this bittersweet love story that smoothly intertwines fantasy and reality.
In a shabby, rundown apartment in an old part of Tokyo, a bright beacon of purity shines into being one day. Silent and motionless, the air doll that belongs to quiet and retiring middle-aged Hideo (Itsuji Itao) has never been anything out of the ordinary. Each evening after work, he chats with her over the dinner table, bathes her and makes love to her before turning in for the night. However, after he leaves the house one day, the air doll begins to twitch and move, miraculously coming to life.
Like a newborn marvelling at the wonder of the world, she is awestruck at the beauty of everything around her. Tottering about in her tiny maid's uniform, she ventures outside the apartment with childlike curiosity. As she wanders through the city, the air doll is enthralled, talking to anyone she finds and trying to comprehend her own ephemeral existence. Though her life is only a few hours old, it changes forever when she walks into a video store and falls helplessly in love with the clerk, Junichi (Arata).
Using broad brushstrokes and a palette of bright primary colours, the film revels in artful attention to detail in the gloriously cluttered mise en scène. Doona Bae charms as the innocent air doll with a sad and winsome beauty; her chemistry with Arata is palpable, and their onscreen ingenuousness truly moving. Similarly, Arata, who last collaborated with Kore-eda on After Life (98), gives a deeply emotive performance. Disarming and thoughtful, Air Doll is a delicately beguiling tale that examines the evanescence of life through the lens of innocence.
Giovanna Fulvi
Hirokazu Kore-eda was born in Tokyo and graduated from Waseda University. He began his career making documentaries under the auspices of the TV Man Union, an independent television production company. His first feature,
Maborosi (95), screened at the Festival, and he has returned to Toronto with his subsequent features
After Life (98),
Distance (01),
Nobody Knows (04),
HANA (06),
Still Walking (08) and
Air Doll (09).