This is a super-slow tale of a AA battery-powered (not a typo!) female-styled android who works for a space package delivery service in the distant future. Deliveries can take a decade or more to reach their intended recipients on various planets (including Earth) depicted in jarring and desolate scenes of evacuated zones of Fukushima after the triple disaster (earthquake, tsunami, and reactor melt down) of 2011. To help pass the years, the android perpetually cleans the interior of the spaceship, smokes cigarettes, washes clothes, and drinks tea and what looks like beer. The film has a number of amusing features including the aforementioned android power source and pastimes as well as the delivery spaceship (see below). Dialog (which is sparse) and narration (of which there is too much) is always spoken in a whisper.
Shot in black and white (except for a brief scene in color), the film is loaded with staged symbolism not unlike what was popular in European films of the 1950s and 1960s. Score is as grating on the ear as scenes are on the eye. Cinematography is fine. Subtitles mostly line up with what is said.
The design of the delivery spaceship is vastly amusing! On the outside it resembles what might be a poor tenant farmer's bungalow. The interior looks like a fugitive from a low-budget 1950's sci-fi movie. It includes light bulbs, lots of wiring and mechanical devices, insects, a leaky water faucet, a clothes washer, and a very bored navigation system. Perfect for space travel! Viewed at Smithsonian/JICC J-Film event. WILLIAM FLANIGAN.
Shot in black and white (except for a brief scene in color), the film is loaded with staged symbolism not unlike what was popular in European films of the 1950s and 1960s. Score is as grating on the ear as scenes are on the eye. Cinematography is fine. Subtitles mostly line up with what is said.
The design of the delivery spaceship is vastly amusing! On the outside it resembles what might be a poor tenant farmer's bungalow. The interior looks like a fugitive from a low-budget 1950's sci-fi movie. It includes light bulbs, lots of wiring and mechanical devices, insects, a leaky water faucet, a clothes washer, and a very bored navigation system. Perfect for space travel! Viewed at Smithsonian/JICC J-Film event. WILLIAM FLANIGAN.