Fish Story (2009)

I have neither the time, nor the mood for writing lately. It's probably noticeable :) ... I didn't lose track yet on the rate of entries/week ( I know that I'm one behind ;) ) = maybe there are still some chances to catch up. The good side is that long breaks bring better movies. Like "Fish Story", or "Fisshu sutôrî" in Japanese, because we have something from that part of the world...

I don't really know in what genre to fit the movie. I guess I could mix together comedy, drama, romance, musical, SciFi, and maybe others. As a short summary I can say that's a sort of concise "Cloud Atlas", better centered on the "in-depth idea", more lighthearted, and without box office claims (now don't get me wrong, I liked "Cloud Atlas", but sometimes got a bit lost in details). The movie starts with the apocalypse of 2012, when a comet has a couple hours until hitting Earth, and the planet inhabitants wait helplessly for the end. Including the residents of the Nippon archipelago. I'm not gonna give any spoiler ( although the outcome is sort of predictable, but not the details ;) ). We slowly move back to 1975 (with some stops on the way). when an unsuccessful punk band, with lousy sales and about to disband, releases a last album including ... "Fish Story". A song with lines that make no sense, and which gets a cassette recording with an enigmatic silenced part in the middle. Stuff that over the years gives birth to various urban legends on the song break reason. And so, the movie carries us forward and backward in time, with various scenes that connect more-or-less to "Fish Story". It's sufficiently chaotic to put your brain at work a bit on trying to tie the loose ends, but at the same time it's perfectly structured not to give you headaches. The story unfolds in a pretty concise manner, although it might not seem so in the beginning. But pretty much everything starts connecting from a point onwards in a sort of long time propagated butterfly effect. And if by chance you still get lost in the story building chain, don't worry, you'll get it before the end ;) ...

I could start with the movies philosophy and what it wants to transmit to the public ( if it wants something :) ). However, I guess that the "in-depth idea" I was mentioning that's more clear, maybe it's clear just for me. So I'll let everybody to get a personal conclusion. On my side I'll stick to the "Cloud Atlas tagline": "Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future." ...

Rating: 4 out of 5