SYMBOL no stars

Surrealism in the movies comes in all shapes and sizes; you just have to give yourself over to it, or not as the case may be. "Symbol" opens very much in the real world, in this case Mexico, and the only incongruity is that the truck-driving nun we see smokes and swears like a trooper, and then suddenly we are in a gigantic white room where the only inhabitant is an Asian gentleman in what I assume are brightly coloured pajamas and around the walls and on the floor are a series of protruding phallic looking objects which, when touched, give off a honking sound and send various props into the room. The man, it would seem, is as confused as we are.

Attempting to apply any meaning to Hitoshi Matsumoto's movie is futile. The film moves between its 'realistic' Mexican setting where a hooded wrestler is getting ready for his big fight and the white room from which pajama man attempts to escape using the props that fall out of the walls. Is the film a comedy? Well, not really unless you have a very bizarre, surreal or just Japanese sense of humour. It's certainly not a drama or a thriller. A comic fantasy perhaps, complete with toilet humour? It's certainly weird enough at least not to be boring and at the end the two totally unrelated stories meet in a mildly amusing if highly imaginative way. You could almost say the movie is worth sitting through for these last 10 minutes; almost but not quite. Personally I could have done without it.