Tokyo. A recent example of the anthology film, Tokyo is comprised of three shorts by three directors, and connected only by a common locale: the metropolis of the title. Michel Gondry’s segment begins absorbingly with an aspiring filmmaker and his girlfriend attempting to secure an apartment while crashing at a friend’s place. It takes shape only in the final few minutes, at which point it descends into surrealism, offering the jarring visual of a girl transmogrifying into a chair. The middle segment, by Leos Carax, is an invigoratingly strange political parable about a red-bearded, cross-eyed, long finger-nailed imp that emerges from the sewer to wreak havoc on the population. Opening with a striking extended shot set to the original Godzilla theme music, it progresses surely and unpredictably to a bizarre climax, culminating in a prankish visual gag. The third segment, helmed by Bong Joon-ho, about a recluse who falls in love with a pizza delivery girl, doesn’t add up to much, but it’s done with an artist’s eye. The sum total of the three works amounts to an entertaining, well made, but ultimately disjointed omnibus.
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