The Room

One of Sono's earlier films. It has all the marks of a director still looking for his signature style. You'll find quite a bit of experimentation here. Some of it works, but other parts of the film were a bit too random, slow, and unpolished for me. I still liked The Room, but I think you need to have a real penchant for slow cinema to get the most out of this one.

There's only about 15 minutes worth of plot here. A hitman hires a real estate agent to find him a room in Tokyo. The hitman is looking for some peace and quiet, but the rooms that are presented to him don't fit the bill. The agent takes a different approach and takes the hitman to visit some farther-off places, located in the slums of the city.

There's quite a bit of footage of people standing around and waiting, elongates shots of the city and the port of Tokyo. The black-and-white cinematography is decent but nothing too out of the ordinary, the soundtrack is interesting, but not quite polished enough to carry the film singlehandedly. I certainly didn't mind The Room, but I need more polish to get completely wrapped up in a mood piece like this.