Shinboru

Symbol is a wonderful tale of the harsh reality of life along a man's quest to reach absolution and his trail through life.

The director uses explicit visual aids to guide us through the materialistic needs of an everyday Japanese man and the things he must do to acquire them by forfeiting his freedom. Following the path of

maturity, he, whose name we will never learn reaches a point were mere material pleasure is not enough and needs to learn what it is like to be free. During this hard and long journey he will find himself doubting and forsaking everything. Only then will he be able to

slide open the door to real freedom and find himself as a new god. But still unable to shed his true human skin, he will influence the lives of people whose existence he is not even aware of.

Symbol is able to reach down and touch you in places that only religion was able to before. It is breathtaking up to the very last second.

I saw this movie at the Brussels Fantastic Film Festival, and I loved it!

In retrospect, I could have ended up hating it just as well!

Shinboru is a very odd situational comedy. It's silly yet artsy, thoughtful in parts, anarchic in its delivery and overall nuts. To this day, I have no idea what it was about, its meaning, what it's meant to *symbolize*.

I enjoyed it immensely, though, and found it especially hilarious with the geeky festival crowd commenting irreverently at the screen. It might not be as fun if you're watching it alone in your living room.

I was fortunate enough to catch this movie at a screening during the Copenhagen film-festival last month, and when I went to see it, I didn't really know what to expect, so imagine my surprise and joy, when I found out that the plot went something like this...

First, we begin with a scene in Mexico, where we see a small family eating breakfast.. nothing extraordinary in that, except that the father is wearing a full-face wrestling-mask, like the famous Mexican wrestler Santos (or for the mainstream-audience, like The Gimp from "Pulp Fiction"), and is suddenly picked up by a foul-mouthed woman dressed as a nun, who drives him to town, where the night's big fight is going to take place.

Then, cut to a Japanese man, waking up in a completely empty white room, not knowing how or why he got there, he screams to get some help and attention. But all he sees is something that looks like a button in the wall.. when he presses it, hundreds of naked angel-boys appear before him, only to disappear back into the wall..except their penises! He then proceeds to press the penises, and finds out that something mysterious happens every time he does so! Holes open in the walls, and random things are thrown into the room, be it furniture, gadgets, food, or even living things! All that happens inside the room is apparently a personal voyage for the man, but it also effects other people's lives at the same time, most notably the Mexican wrestler and his family, which we discover near the end of the film. But it really is something that should be watched to be completely understood - and even then, it's not even certain that you'll be able to understand what happened - or why.

Highly recommended film. Very unique and entertaining throughout, even though the last fifteen minutes get really bizarre and too artsy for my taste. This movie is not to be missed. You will probably never see anything quite as weird and funny like this. 8/10

Challenges many of the most basic philosophical assumptions about god, heaven, and hell. If you ever wondered about your own impact on others and your ability to do good works.. Or wondered if god could evolve eventually, there is so much to chew on. Imagery as diverse as clowns, Mexican wrestling, and the symbols of Japanese culture flutter as butterfly wings with the strobe and flicker of film infecting NOT only as genius can from the other side of the planet. The layering of thought and ideas is very satisfying compared to typical American films. I am not surprised that all but one of the reviews even gave an accurate summary. This can be a complex film, but not necessarily. A creative child couldn't help being charmed by the poetic surface of action and color. A stunning treat.

There's no mention on who the director/ lead actor Hitoshi Matsumoto is in the other reviews, which may help prospective viewers to decide if they want to see this unique film or not. Matsumoto is one half of the arguably most famous Japanese comedy duo 'Downtown'. Their style is called 'manzai', that is one guy says a lot of stupid stuff and the other butts in all the time to correct him; you may have seen this in the background of some films by Kitano, who started his career in 'manzai' as well.

If you know that type of comedy, the otherwise completely non-sequitur style of 'Symbol' won't necessarily come as such a surprise, because the whole idea of 'manzai' is to baffle the audience by pushing nonsense as far as it can go. Since Matsumoto's part is the 'boke' AKA nitwit, it's pretty much in his line to come up with the most far-fetched, senseless and weirdest story angles imaginable - after all he's been doing this on TV since 1983! The ridiculous wig he's wearing in the film is actually part of his TV antics - I remember him wobbling around with it whenever he got an idea, pretty much like what he's doing here.

What surprised me though is that 'Symbol' has excellent production values, unlike his debut 'Big Man Japan' which suffered from very bad CGI (which may have been on purpose though). Here the visuals look so well done that I can't help but wonder about the budget. Another surprise unmentioned in the other reviews: there's an appearance by 'Kiss'! Other than that, I can only confirm what everyone else said: you may love it, you may hate it, that depends on how much you can forget about any expectations you have.