7 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
A life-size, inflatable sex doll suddenly comes to life one day. Without her owner knowing, she goes for a walk around town and falls in love with Junichi. She starts to date Junichi and gets a job at the same store where he works. Everything seems to be going perfectly for her until something unexpected happens.
Starring: Bae Doona, Itsuji Itao, Sumiko Fuji, Tasuku Emoto, Mari HoshinoForeign | 100% |
Drama | 31% |
Fantasy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Japanese: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 5.0 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
In her book, My Fair Ladies: Female Robots, Androids, and Other Artificial Eves (Rutgers University Press, 2015), Julie Wosk traces the history of kakuri or mechanical dolls in Japan to the eighteenth-century (the Edo period) when craftsmen adapted Western clockwork mechanisms. Female dolls would resemble tea servers with walking legs that moved and glided forward (p. 36). A few hundred years later, Hirokazu Kore-eda portrays the different roles a Japanese doll plays in twenty-first-century postmodern life. In an early scene in his Air Doll (2009), Kore-eda shows Hideo (Itsuji Itao), a lonely middle-aged man who works as a waiter in a western-style family restroom, in his abode's dining room with a life-sized vinyl female doll. She is dressed as a chambermaid, which is probably similar to the outfits craftsmen envisioned adorning their dolls that Wosk mentions in her book. Hideo has named the inflatable doll Nozomi after his ex-girlfriend, who he must still be missing. Nozomi sits opposite Hideo so he can tell her about his day. She also serves as an erotic companion for him when he makes love to her at him. Throughout the film, Kore-eda deconstructs the roles and performativity that Nozomi assumes on behalf of her lovers, children who observe her, and people she meets in a section of Tokyo.
Kore-eda constructs Air Doll like a fairy tale. One day the static and immobile Nozomi magically reaches sentience when she touches water dripping from a window. "Beautiful" is the first translated word to come out of her mouth. While Hideo is away at work, Nozomi (now portrayed by Bae Doo-na) ventures outside to consciously experience the city for the first time. She often imitates the movements and actions of passersby and persons she encounters, who take her as rather peculiar. Nozomi wanders into a video rental store known as the Cinema Circus. There she is befriended by Junichi (Arata), an employee who does not know she's originally a doll. Nozomi's friendliness and curiosity help earn her a job as a video clerk. When Hideo takes Nozomi outside with him one evening to sit on a bench, he is unaware that she has just previously sprung to life.
Trying on a new brassiere.
Dekanalog's release of Air Doll comes on an MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-50 (disc size: 39.46 GB). The film appears in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1. World-class cinematographer Mark Lee Ping-bing shot the picture using Arricam cameras as well as Zeiss and Angenieux lenses. While there was a DI finished in 2K (probably for cinemas that had DLP projection in 2009), Air Doll was printed on 35 mm film stock. I watched the movie in my home theater and also examined it shot by shot on a monitor. The print looks clean with no compression-related artifacts. Noise reduction or filtering is not apparent at all. Skin tones appear wholly natural. The city's various outdoor lights and those seen in buildings from afar have a mint green gleam to them at dusk or nightfall (see Screenshot #s 2, 9, 11, and 16). Dekanalog has encoded the film at an average video bitrate of 34963 kbps.
The 125-minute feature has received eleven chapter breaks.
Dekanalog has supplied a Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo mix (1650 kbps, 24-bit). (The back cover incorrectly lists it as 5.1.) Dekanalog's uncompressed track is a technical upgrade over the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo mix found on Matchbox's 2020 UK Blu-ray. Spoken words are usually always audible and easy to discern. The matrixed stereo surround mix has a wonderful ambience. It even sounds like a quasi-5.1 track on some occasions when noises from the garbage trucks are heard almost discretely on the rear channels. The front and satellite speakers are often evenly balanced with reverberations heard on the latter. Music by solo composer world's end girlfriend (aka Katsuhiko Maeda) sounds warm. A Xylophone-like instrument and piano are cleverly employed and contrasted to represent different facets of Nozomi and the different stages of her character.
The optional white English subtitles are clear and legible. (See an example in frame grab #20.)
Dekanalog has ported over all the extras from Matchbox Films' 2020 Blu-ray "Collector's Edition":
Air Doll (2009) is a fascinating cinematic fable about an inflatable doll who assumes human-like qualities. It adeptly taps into the Asian male's repressive state and his need to fulfill erotic desires while remaining in control of an impotent object. It also raises the question that if dolls ever became human hybrids, could they be genuinely loved since they have acquired some feelings and emotions? The film has been criticized as too sentimental and saccharine but I feel those characterizations are overblown. I hope that the source for Kore-eda's adapted screenplay is published in English: manga writer Gōda Yoshiie's 20-page graphic novella, Gouda's Philosophical Discourse: The Pneumatic Figure of a Girl. Dekanalog delivers a practically flawless transfer and spacious lossless stereo mix. The vintage extras are minimal but still very welcome. While Air Doll does not rank among Kore-eda's finest works, it still deserves a STRONG RECOMMENDATION.
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