Japan | 2024 | 93m | Japanese, French, English

Hanako is a 26-year-old punk rock singer whose band hasn’t yet found success, which doesn’t leave Hanako much time to achieve her goal of playing the Glastonbury Festival before dying at age 27 just like her favorite rock idols.

The Gesuidouz is a film with a lot of heart, which is why I wanted to like it more than I did. It is at its most memorable when it portrays the struggles of the creative process. These imaginative scenes oscillate between eccentric to downright surreal. Sometimes Hanako bounces frenetically around her room and hastily sketches calligraphy of her lyric ideas. Other times she’s barfing up cassette tapes with completed tracks or hearing her dog speak (not bark) in aphorisms.

Where the film struggles is in its direction. While it’s probably done for stylistic and creative reasons, the acting is decidedly hammed up and unrealistic. These just don’t feel like real people struggling to make their mark in the brutally cutthroat world of popular music. I can imagine the director before filming each scene, peering through his camera, telling his actors, “Okay, now we’re gonna take a silly one!” For a story that is actually quite heavy – after all, ultimately it’s about a young woman’s struggle with suicidal ideation brought about by perfectionism and creative unfulfillment – I wanted a little more groundedness to the performances and gravitas lent to the storytelling.

At least the punk rock song they come up with at the end of the movie (“Smells Like Zombie” – not “Smells Like A Zombie” as some have misquoted) is a certified banger.

2/5

Viewed on September 12, 2024 at the Scotiabank Theatre as part of the Toronto International Film Festival 2024.