Undo

In short: Giving off a low budget, film school feel, Undo is a dark, strange, and unique short film. While containing some quite beautiful shots, Undo is mostly unpleasant to watch and the dialogue is a bit awkward. For Iwai fans, Undo is a nice glimpse into his experimental side, but is far from his best film.

Undo is about a young couple, Yukio (Toyokawa Etsushi) and Moemi (Yamaguchi Tomoko) living in a small apartment (which just doesn't seem normal). The beginning of the film is fairly normal; Yukio brings home turtles as pets because they cannot have dogs or cats, Moemi has her braces removed, they take their turtles for walks (yes, there is a bit of animal cruelty in this film). The situation at the apartment becomes strange when Moemi starts tying and knotting things up, books, apples, the turtles, everything. She is diagnosed with Obsessive Knot-Tying Syndrome and only becomes worse. The film descends into madness as Yukio has to deal with the increasingly worsening Moemi. Various odd scenes follow.

Filmed much like Picnic (1996) and Swallowtail Butterfly (1996), Undo is mostly dark and shadowy, with grainy, fuzzy, and washed out colors. Specific shots are stunning, and music is minimal and ineffective. Acting is good–the girl is particularly interesting as she plays a strange woman who becomes obsessed with knotting things up. Overall, the characters (all 3) were not normal and struck me as odd. Undo is a disturbing film that seeks to show love in a very unconventional way. I probably won't view it again, but watch it if you are interested in experimental film making or a fan of Iwai Shunji.

Not all that good, really, but...

Every other Iwai film I've seen (ref. my comment at Love Letter ) has been mappable. Each defined spaces. Watching each you know, to varying extents, how to move around in its unique world. This isn't true of Undo. Even though most of it takes place in the young couple's apartment, this residence is made of disconnected shots. Though you can see the place in the DVD's "making of," in the film it could have been sewn together from shots of three or four sets. The shrink's office, the peopled hill apparently outside the apartment, the river's-edge idyl are equally detached. If the film resembles any other Iwai, it's Yentown , aka Swallowtail Butterfly but this is mainly a matter of lighting and color choices, both films warm, fuzzy. Nothing's as distinct as the worlds of the later Love Letter or April Story. Undo's parts are linked, instead of by geometry, by thematic images: braces, cord, knots. At worst, it can seem nothing but set-up for payoff shots: turtle bound and suspended in sunlit window.

Again, banish all thought of madness. Imagine instead you're being guided by Rivers and Tides' Andy Goldsworthy. The young woman tries to wrap thread around soapsuds quivering on a fingertip. See Rivers and Tides to know Goldsworthy would do this if he could. Leash, not as restraint, but as line. Knot, not as lock, but as node. Keep fetish bondage out of your mind, see just cord, lines. Fetish stuff tends to symmetrical, because the human form is symmetrical. Everything here tends away and awry. Undo 's later extremes are weblike at a glance but without even a spider's adaptive symmetry.

Everything I've said to avoid may come to you anyway. Or may not. Just, don't seek it. The shortcut risks missing too much. And ask yourself, by the way, why the film is named instantly in English, with phonetic guidance for non-speakers: Àndú.

Another touchpoint's Umizaki (the manga's way better than the film). Yet another, and I'm not sure why, there being no flight in Undo unless in the word's other sense, is Alain Tanner's Les Années lumière. Maybe Undo 's bindings and the rigging for Jonas' wings suggest each other. (The 1980 film's a sort of sequel to Jonas qui auras 25 en l'an 2000 , but there's another later, 1999, sort-of sequel Jonas et Lila, à demain ) I want to cite another director, Japanese, from a series some past decade at the Pacific Film Archive, whose color features include long pans following cord or sash over landscapes into buildings to end sometime in fetish bindings, but the name's lost to me.

Iwai Shunji's 1994 film _Undo_ starts off relatively normal. Although his girlfriend Moemi desires a dog or a cat, the management of Yukio's apartment building does not allow its residents to keep pets. However, this agreement apparently only mentions certain pets such as our furry friends mentioned above because Yukio soon purchases two turtles for Moemi. Expecting a more warm-blooded companion, Moemi is of course a bit put out, but the young couple makes the best of things. Yukio even goes as far as to drill holes in the back of one turtle's shell so a leash can be put around him. Moemi does not allow the other turtle to be drilled, because she refers to that one as a house pet. A little later Yukio and Moemi take the turtle out for a walk and they seem as happy as any young couple would be walking a turtle. However, things begin to go a bit astray.

Moemi is quite childlike in nature, and her childishness is accented by the fact that she wears braces. However, soon into the film her braces is removed and the audience is treated to an oddly intimate scene in which Yukio, while kissing Moemi, licks her teeth and states that it is different because there is no taste of metal. Moemi then informs him that she can always have them put back. After this event Moemi starts to become a bit odd. She begins to tie things with string. She ties up apples, books, and even suspends her turtles from the ceiling. Yukio takes her to a psychiatrist who states that Moemi suffers from Obsessine Knot-Tying Syndrome and that she does it because she is worried about being in an unstable situation. The movie goes on to show how unstable Moemi truly is.

Iwai Shunji is a fascinating director. I have watched his films _All About Lily Chou Chou_, _April Story_, and _Love Letter_, and I must say that this is the most disturbing one that I have had the pleasure of watching.