Fantasia 09 Review: INSTANT SWAMP

[Our thanks to Lauren Baggett for the following review. Well, hey! Make that two reviews! ScreenAnarchy reader Irina has also just sent one in and you'll find that below the break after the conclusion of Lauren's review.]

Haname might not be living a cursed life, but she certainly isn't living a charmed one. The magazine she's editing is about to fold, and her sorta-maybe love interest has left Japan for Milan. The drudgery of daily life is taking its toll, and Haname fears that her life is slowly eroding into something humdrum and deathly dull. Then her world is knocked for a loop when her water sprite hunting mother is hospitalized and a long submerged postbox reveals that Haname's father is not actually the man she thought he was. Her real father, according to a never-delivered letter, is a black sheep of her extended family who skipped town without knowing that he had impregnated Haname's mother.

With the help of the letter, she's easily able to track down her real father, nicknamed “Light Bulb”. Light Bulb runs a junk shop down by the river, dresses like everyone's idea of an aging hippie, and is a generally wacky eccentric in the quirky Japanese comedy tradition. Light Bulb is the kind of guy who puts the faucet on full blast and then races to the vending machine and back before the sink overflows, the kind of guy who rhapsodizes over the beauty of a perfectly bent nail. Luckily, Haname is the sort who loves bent nails and faucet races, too, and the two soon strike up a camaraderie. Light Bulb knows that Haname's a relation, but he's in the dark about just how closely related the two of them are. With nothing better to do, Haname is soon hanging around the junk shop, encountering a punk rock electrician named Gas and joining the search for an elusive King Tut fortune telling machine. She gets bit pretty hard by the antiquing bug, and is soon planning to take the plunge and open up a shop of her own. But will Haname finally spill the beans and confess that she's Light Bulb's daughter? More importantly, does it even matter if she does or not? Luckily, director Satoshi Miki is more concerned with individual eccentricities and small moments than a huge plot arc, and therein lies the charm of INSTANT SWAMP.

Satoshi Miki was behind last year's Fantasia hit ADRIFT IN TOKYO, and while this new offering isn't quite as sublime, INSTANT SWAMP is still a joy to watch. Where ADRIFT IN TOKYO was measured and quiet in its strangeness, INSTANT SWAMP bops along at a perky pace, kept alive by some enjoyable performances and just the right touch of whimsy. The movie is classic Miki, and calls to mind his earlier work; Haname is similar to (though not a carbon copy of) the heroine of TURTLES ARE SURPRISINGLY FAST SWIMMERS, and Miki reuses a few of his actors from earlier films.

I was admittedly nervous when the biological father plotline came up. I braced for a dramatic, weepy climax that never came, thank goodness. Haname is mature enough to figure out pretty quickly that Light Bulb, while a loveable scamp, is a roamer and a bit of a scam artist. He's great to grab a meal with, but not so great for any expected father-daughter bonding. Happily, most of the potential angst is set aside in favor of Haname and Light Bulb forming a friendship and getting into scrapes together. The film is more concerned with Haname's journey from a stubborn skeptic into someone who can embrace the more inexplicable, maybe even magical parts of life. INSTANT SWAMP is sometimes bizarre, sometimes downright silly, but nearly always charming.

Review by Lauren Baggett

Trying to describe Instant Swamp in terms of plot seems like a futile exercise. Not that there is no plot or that the storyline is irrelevant but there is simply so much going on that one hardly knows where to start. Let me give it my best try :

Haname, a very spirited young woman, feels as if her life is eroding and she might be on to something. Despite her best efforts, the magazine where she works is forced to stop publication and with it go her hopes of moving to Europe and reuniting with her long lost love. Now unemployed, Haname is at a crossroads with no idea where to go from there. A series of bizarre events will leave her with a comatose mom, an eccentric stranger for a dad and a new outlook on life.

The movie plays out more like a series of episodes than as a static storyline as we follow Haname’s seemingly aimless wanderings through business endeavors and little adventures. This is not a bad thing at all since each episode is pleasant and charming in its own way and the lead character’s relentlessness keeps up a brisk pace, never allowing the audience to get bored.

The characters are all fun and well acted by an unmistakably talented cast but none of them really have a chance to shine individually; rather they play off each other to create an effective ensemble piece. For instance, Haname’s happy go lucky attitude and boundless energy could get somewhat annoying if it wasn’t toned and mitigated by Gas’s (a surprisingly straight laced punk) steady calm.

I believe that if you are the type of person that needs a clear and well defined point, you will probably not enjoy this movie much. It does require a steady suspension of disbelief and a willingness to let oneself simply drift along. Happily though, most clichés have been done away with in the script. There are no recognizable archetypes, the expected heartfelt reconciliation with the protagonist’s long lost father never really happens and the romantic development with the male lead never happens either. Relationships evolve casually and naturally amid all the craziness and are resolved in a truly satisfying way.

In feel and pacing, this movie is probably closer to Ishii’s The Taste of Tea than Satoshi Miki’s previous work, Adrift in Tokyo. Although a bit uneven, all in all Instant Swamp is a great feel good movie that will keep you smiling until the very end.

Review by Irina