SHINBORU

In the central tale, a Japanese man (Matsumoto Hitoshi) wakes up alone in a brightly illuminated white room with no windows or doors. When he presses a mysteriously phallic protuberance that appears on one wall, a pink toothbrush materializes from nowhere, clattering to the floor and setting in motion a genuinely bizarre chain of events. Soon the imprisoned man is engaged in absurd and hilarious attempts to escape from the gleaming room, releasing random objects from the walls, creating a life-sized Mouse Trap game in which a rope, a toilet plunger and an earthenware jug full of sushi might just be the keys to his escape. Meanwhile, in a dusty town, a green-masked Mexican wrestler known as Escargot Man prepares for an important match.
Matsumoto Hitoshi’s outrageous superhero-versus-giant-monsters comedy Dai-Nipponjin was a true big-screen freak show. His second feature, Symbol, is a mind-melting journey into the deepest realm of his imagination. Intertwining two seemingly unrelated narratives, Symbol delivers a stunning visual feast while taking the outlandishness of each scene to dizzying heights. (Colin Geddes)