Air Doll

Air Doll  (Japan, 2009)

Unlike anything else in Kore-eda’s filmography, this story of an inflatable sex doll that comes to life in the middle of Tokyo strikes a whimsical tone that renders its reflections on loneliness, love, the movies and what it really means to be human all the more bittersweet.  Bae Doo-na (The Host) breathes ineffable life into Nozomi whose childlike curiosity leads her to leave her owner, an anti-social waiter, and explore the old neighborhood around her where she encounters other residents equally, quietly yearning for connection and meaning beneath the city's gleaming skyscrapers—including a clerk at a video store where she lands a job.  Throughout her adventures, the gliding camera work and crisp imagery of cinematographer Mark Lee Ping-Bing (The Assassin, In the Mood for Love) draw out both the fantastical and philosophical in the everyday.

35mm, color, in Japanese with English subtitles, 126 min.  Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda.  Based on the manga by Yoshiie Goda.  Screenwriter: Hirokazu Kore-eda.  Cinematographer: Mark Lee Ping-Bing.  Editor: Hirokazu Kore-eda.  Production Design: Yohei Taneda.  Music: Katsuhiko Maeda.  Cast: Bae Doo-na, Arata Iura, Itsuji Itao, Joe Odagiri, Junko Fuji.