Review for Instant Swamp

Introduction

Last year, I had the distinct pleasure of reviewing Turtles Are Surprisingly Fast Swimmers. Of course I didn't realise that it would be a pleasure at the time, never having experienced the work of director Satoshi Miki, but the tale of a bored housewife whose life was enlivened when she became a spy was like a breath of fresh air. It was a film that was inventive, original, quirky, funny, gentle and uplifting. It took me completely by surprise when I watched it, and I find that the experience has stayed with me, and even now, a year later, just thinking of the film makes me smile. When Third Window Films announced that they would be releasing Instant Swamp from the same director this summer, I began anticipating this film in a way that I had thought I had lost. It's easy to become a little jaded as a reviewer, with piles and piles of check discs growing in my in-tray. When Instant Swamp arrived, I felt just as I did when I was a child, lining up in front of the box office anticipating the latest summer blockbuster. Of course, it's easy for such high hopes to be dashed, and Instant Swamp does bear a striking resemblance to its predecessor, with a central female character, escaping a humdrum existence into something quite wonderful…


This time it is Haname Jinchoge who is faced with a mundane existence. It's a little more than just mundane though, as since the age of eight, when her father left the family, she's been prone to more bad luck than usual. The day he left, she threw everything that he had ever given her into a swamp, including an auspicious cat statuette that is supposed to give good fortune. She's grown up as a pragmatic realist, which is a little at odds with her mother, who regularly sees kappa (water sprites) in the back garden. So sceptic Haname lives her monochrome life, working for a magazine that is spiralling towards the abyss, and slowly feels her life eroding away.


Then the magazine folds completely, the staff is put on indefinite suspension, and she's left at home with her pet rabbit Gonzaburo. Getting rid of her worldly possessions in order to make a new start doesn't help much, but her world changes when an old letter is unearthed, revealing that her father isn't actually her father. Her real father was a wanderer who loved and left her mother. Haname decides to find him, and that journey takes her into a whole new world, and a completely unexpected adventure.

The Disc

Instant Swamp gets a 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer, which is an NTSC-PAL standards conversion, with the consequent softness that you would expect. That said, signs of interlacing are few and far between, while ghosting is hardly noticeable. It helps that Instant Swamp is a bright and colourful film, clear throughout and just oozing an effervescence of vivid optimism. You can't get dark and murky with a film like this. Audio comes in DD 2.0 Japanese flavour, the dialogue is clear, the music suits the story well, and there's a nice bit of ambience in the stereo. The English subtitles are optional, clear and correct throughout. The only extras are trailers for other Third Window films, 19 of them in total, and you may want to pay attention to Kakera and Fish Story for future gems of Japanese cinema to look forward to.

Conclusion

I had a few reservations about Turtles when I watched it last year, hesitated about grading it, as I felt it was just a little disjointed and random, feeling like a series of sketches rather than a solid narrative. Of course 'living' with the film has certainly made me fonder of it, a little more forgiving of its flaws. Instant Swamp is, if anything, even more random, surreal and disjointed than its predecessor. It's very much got a manga ethos, fast paced, surreal, and wild and wacky. It's also the best film that I have seen this year so far. It's fun, it's entertaining, it's brilliant, it's hysterically funny, and it's the ultimate feelgood movie too. That's because unlike Turtles, Instant Swamp's explosion of randomness gets pulled back into a narrative, and as the end credits roll, the film clicks into one coherent whole. Satoshi Miki starts building a delicate house of cards, and ends up with a wonderful, imposing monument of whimsy.


I'll leave the plot alone, as for one thing, its random nature makes it hard to quantify without going all the way through it, and the second thing is that it really is a film that is best discovered for yourself. Not only are spoilers not appreciated at this point, but also somehow describing the bizarre events that occur in the story, doesn't achieve the same sense of wonder in print as it does in the film. The joy of the film though has to be in the wonderful collection of oddball characters, beginning of course with Haname Jinchoge herself, a hardworking pragmatic career girl, with a somewhat skewed perspective on life, and a relentless optimism in the face of adversity. The skewed perspective comes from her mother, who believes in all sorts of fantastic supernatural things, and as we later learn, from her somewhat unconventional father. Haname may not believe in the supernatural or fate, but she is the sort of person who keeps a bent rusty nail, because it is the perfect specimen of bent rusty nails, and if anyone can recognise that, then they are sure to be friends.


One such person is Ichinose, a fellow reporter at the magazine, and Haname's best friend. Early on they are working on a story to find the vendor of the stinkiest ramen in the city, and I love the way the two have a shared secret vocabulary, the sort of veiled glances that can convey a wealth of information that only best friends have. Finding her real father comes as something of a shock for Haname, as Light Bulb, as he is known, is little more than an unscrupulous peddler, although he would have antique dealer on his CV. It's very much a junk shop that Haname walks into, and the somewhat touchy and abrupt man comes as something of a surprise. But as they get to know each other, something does click between them. Haname is certainly refreshing for Light Bulb, while his view on the world seems to give more meaning to Haname's own life. I also like the way the film slowly unveils the similarities in both their characters, a certain resemblance that Haname is quick to deny. Also working on and off with Light Bulb is the punk rocker, Gas who has a job as an electrician. He seems innocuous and ephemeral enough, but as the film progresses, he gradually emerges as the character that is most simpatico with Haname. Gas and Electric, there is plenty of wordplay in Instant Swamp, although much of it will probably go over the heads of most English speakers. But even I got a thrill from the Neon Genesis Evangelion reference though.


Instant Swamp is a whimsical delight. It's rich with colour, with character, and with a sheer joie de vivre. It's also deliciously funny, and I found that I was laughing uproariously all the way through. Its characters and situations are bizarre and unexpected, but never unbelievably so, and the film constantly surprises with visual exclamation marks of creativity that do take the breath away. It's a story about relentless optimism in the face of whatever adversity the world throws at us, and also about grabbing hold of one's dreams and pursuing them, regardless of where the road takes you. Perfect messages for a film that leaves you feeling better about yourself and the world.