Blog - Bonsai Girl
Bonsai Girl
Last night we went to Lumine the Yoshimoto in Shinjuku to catch "Bonsai Girl", a 30-minute film directed by Paradise Yamamoto (Tokyo Panorama Mambo Boys), part of a series of 100 short films directed by various comedians. It was our first time going there, and the place was full of hundreds of people coming out of the previous comedy show. The film screening was delayed a bit, and we entered the large room that felt very empty with only about 8 spectators.
The movie was very nicely done. Sure, the story line isn't deep, but Paradise's love for manbonsai (his art of putting miniature figures of people around a bonsai to make it look like a large tree) and mambo shined throughout, as well as his desire to tell the whole world about it. Indeed the movie even had English subtitles!
The story is about a girl who likes flowers and discovers accidentally about manbonsai, of which she buys a book randomly. At first she doesn't quite get what it's about, but a nice foreign guy (very fluent in Japanese) explains her what's so great about manbonsai, and soon they're making their own. The film had some funny twists and was entertaining to the end. A very nice introduction to the world of manbonsai.
This was presented together with a strange and funny film by comedian Takewaka Motohiro (of Buffalo Gorō), titled "Golden Atmosphere" about a guy who wanders around his neighborhood and sees little things in unbelievable ways.
The last screenings in Shinjuku and Shibuya are tonight (in just 2 hours or so), so... make it if you can(?). Hopefully "Bonsai Girl" will get shown elsewhere in the world too, or released in DVD for more people to see it.
Posted on April 25, 2008 at 19:08 | Tweet
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