Air Doll (2009)

http://asianwiki.com/Air_Doll
http://twitchfilm.com/reviews/2010/06/air-doll-review.php
http://japancinema.net/2010/09/01/air-doll-review/
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127350715
http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/2010/07/29/fantasia-2010-air-doll-review/
http://www.bateszi.me/2010/04/06/people-with-cold-hands-have-warm-hearts-air-doll-review/

One Hell of a Doll:

Things you Can't put out with the trash.

Air Doll is not a Romantic comedy like it appears to be on the trailer, The narrative is presented at first as a love-triangle but the audience soon release that the story is more to do with Nozomi who is a Air Doll.  Nozomi is a Sex toy that comes to life , the films the Narrative questions societies relation with both each other and toward technology. Nozomi is born, so the character reflect the persona of a child, innocence and learning about the world from the begging but she also has a sexual relationship with Hideo which sounds weird. In Japanese media there is a concern with both youth culture and technology in the sense of it destructive behaviour. In Air Doll there was both of these elements in the film, there issues of age because the older generation felt pushed aside from society and there a feeling of symbolism of the older generation being judged to the point of self loafing. Naive Nozomi follow a woman around with the false concept that she is a Doll also and she offers her make up to cover her line but the woman  played by Kimiko Yo missunderstands what Nozomi is saying.

The film is questioning the concept of Humanity, The film start out like like any other Japanese Manga where the Inanimate object come to life and the concept is similar to robot story where robot girl explores Japan and becomes almost human but there where Dark side story that you could see building up along side the main narrative. Nozomi was not really Human, even though she appears to be human, she doesn't have any real human emotions and like any other monster movie the creature always destroys the master or in her case her inability to understand how the human body works is her curse. The reason for Nozomi naivety is because she is just a Doll, the concept of life, death are somewhat impossible to her and this is what make her in a sense dangerous to society because people use her to fill their own void unaware that she is somewhat emotionless.

The beginning of the film is a bit creepy with sex scenes with the Doll but apart from that Nozomi is an interesting character, like all the other characters in the film, she eventually becomes useless and put away. The film commenting on the disposable society that we live in but it has taken the concept a little further by commenting that people are just as disposable as technology (there will always be another, better model available). Nozomi like the Pinocchio concept, she wants to be a human like everyone else but unlike Pinocchio the narrative reveals that her inability to understand emotions and the boundaries that in effect cause her to inflict pain to the character she cares about. The character do not change through out the journey, they come to some sense of realisation but there is no real Hollywood happy ending and Nozomi accidentally kills the guy she likes. The film is amazing though, the effects are well though out, the Narrative is realistic even though it is a bit bizarre at time but i have seen weirder concepts in Japanese cinema.