Aki and Naoko are childhood friends who are drifting apart as adults. Immersed in her family life, Naoko now has a husband and daughter; Aki, on the other hand, remains single and is on leave from work due to a personal crisis. The plot might sound familiar but it has never been told like this. The director Kusano Natsuka stages the interactions through an actors’ table-read and, as the lines are repeated, the scenes gradually develop into on-location conversations. Moreover, she repositions the dramatic peak of the story to the beginning: Aki has murdered Naoko’s daughter.Structurally inventive, Kusano's daring cinema implements ‘distantiation’ effects to get to the heart of friendship issues at times when life has settled. While the repetitions convey the suffocation of role patterns in both friendship and family, a line left out or added in unsettles and reminds us life can take unexpected turns.
头脑特工队影片的精彩影评
老赵（赵本山饰）是个五十多岁的农民，他南下深圳打工，因好友老刘死了，不得不走上背对方尸体回家安葬之旅。他先把老刘伪装成醉鬼，混上长途车，却不幸在途中遇上劫匪（郭德纲等饰）。救了一车人钱财的他反而给乘客赶下了车。老赵只好在路上拦车，晚上住店，钱却被偷。他到别人（午马饰）的葬礼哭丧，混得饭吃……一路上，老赵遇到形形色色的中国人。目标在望之际，他累晕了，在医院中苏醒后，警察告诉他，要按规定把尸体火化。老赵带着老刘的骨灰回到他的家乡，那儿却已经拆迁了。门板上，写着老刘的儿子的留言。