Red Post on Escher Street (2020)
Director (and writer): Sion Sono
Cast: Sen Fujimaru, Riku Kurokouchi, Mala Morgan
It follows a film-maker who holds auditions for his net project. Several of the actors who fail to win roles participate as extras. – IMDB
While Sion Sono is a well-known director from Japan, its one that is a bit of a blindspot in my watch list. Red Post on Escher Street is an odd film. It almost feels like one long audition reel with a lot of different groups of friends and touching a little on the different backstories from a widowed young girl and her family to a group of friends who do theatre shows today or a group of extreme fangirls of the director of this film, etc. Looking at both sides from the auditions to the different people behind the scenes like the director’s story and the executives funding the film and their influence and all coming to the finale where the film is being made and all these people who didn’t get the roles become these extras and it all goes to a crazy finale. The whole thing feels like a lot of something and nothing and almost feels like its not very significant and yet, there is something so charming and entertaining about the whole ordeal which is what makes Red Post on Escher Street such a fun movie experience despite its long runtime of almost 2.5 hours long.
Red Post on Escher Post highlights a film set and the difficulties plus the differences in viewpoints. The director wants to find his roots and a new muse of sorts that he had with a previous actress that he worked with however, things are set up in a certain way to be coerced to have the investor’s wishes of casting his own choice of cast. The pressures on all sides and the different backstories of the people all reflected and come together by the end. It all gets so ridiculous at the end and yet so hilarious as we have the shoot all fall apart when the extras want to fight for their chance and follow their dreams, each warped in their own thoughts and this whole string of people running down the streets. I’m sure the Red Post Box is meant to have some significance but its really great how it shows up in different scenes as a purpose for various events whether its finding certain items or delivering their audition application forms or whatnot.
Red Post on Escher Street is a movie to just experience. Its hard to say that anything is especially outstanding but yet it all seems to work together in a rather over the top way. Some of it doesn’t all make sense but then the script is done that by the end a lot of the randomness comes together in subtle details in dialogue and a little reveal for one of the characters. The scenes and outfits are colorful and the characters themselves are also quite catchy and oddly intriguing. Among the tons of serious movies in this year’s Festival du Nouveau Cinema, its quite the palate cleanser to have a movie that discusses a very serious themes of grief, loss, chasing dreams, oppression but all wrapped up in this colorful and oddly comedic tone.
Tranquil Dreams 