- What happens, when an ordinary family in one of the arguably most advanced cities in the world starts living in two different worlds? What happens, when that fine line between reality and fantasy begins to blur, when a computer game controls the space you live in, re-defines your real life?
- IGUANA TOKYO tells the story of a family that installs the Virtual Reality game M2 in their small flat in downtown Tokyo. The rules are simple: whoever wins, is in charge. The game becomes the center of their lives, defines their reality, and quickly changes the family dynamic, for depending on how well they do in the game, the family members' rooms in their flat increase or shrink in size. The game threatens to tear the family apart, and only their pet iguana realizes the dangerous tension developing between the Mother, the Father and their daughter Tokyo.
The World of IGUANA TOKYO is a slightly distorted version of a future, that is not quite as improbable as it may seem. Tokyo, on the cutting edge of technological evolution, where the glamorous, fantastical world of the computer game M2 presents an alluring contrast to the pragmatic, pale, anonymous everyday lives of the city's inhabitants - lives, that pale compared to the game for the very reason of drawing all attention to the flat screen TV in the living room. M2 is everywhere, the city drowning in its advertisement, the game's accessories installed in flats all over. If you can, you play.
What starts out in the guise of a Coming-of-Age drama - the story focuses on the sensitive 14-year-old girl Tokyo and her obviously very close relationship to her mother - soon reveals itself as a psychological Sci-Fi drama about a family on the brink, where everyone, even their pet iguana, has their own, important role to play.
Trying to reconnect with his daughter and get closer to her "world", the father decides to install M2 in their family home, and soon Tokyo and her parents become consumed by the game. In M2s glamorous world they let go of their moral restraints, live out their deepest and darkest desires, and under the eyes of the iguana, the silent observer, the game slowly but surely destroys what little peace and love they had for each other. Witnessing Tokyo's increasing sensual desire for her mother, the father desperately tries to regain control of the game - and thus of his family - and seeks the aid of a young gamer. Soon after, the young man is violently murdered, and it becomes clear, that the game is not only threatening Tokyo's family, but the whole city is losing its grip on reality under its influence. Torn between two different worlds and their own desires, Tokyo and her family must decide, what is more important to them: their life or their life with M2. If they are willing to fight for that life. And what, or whom, they are willing to sacrifice for it.
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