Wednesday, 30 September 2009

Vexille: Film Review

Title: Vexille (Bekushiru: 2077 Nihon Sakoku)
Director: Fumihiko Sori
Writer: Fumihiko Sori
Year: 2007


Being an ardent fan of tales where the future is portrayed as a nightmarish place, I was almost instantly enamoured of Vexille. By my reckoning, the more dystopian stories that exist, the less likely they are to come about. It is in times of hardship that incredibly cheerful productions are written and produced, as is shown by comedy being so successful in the recession. Already, I digress.

Vexille is set in the year 2077, in a world where robotics technology has began advancing at such a rate that the UN have banned further research on the subject, which in turn leads Japan to pursue a policy of complete isolation. This isolation includes the construction of an enormous series of signal towers around Japan, which release a scrambling signal and effectively remove Japan from sight. By 2077 Japan have been socially removed from world affairs for 10 years, and yet the Japanese Daiwa Corporation have absolute monopoly over the world’s robotics market, supplying the American technology police agency, SWORD, with all of their equipment. Suspicions about Japanese development of robotics, which, if it were taking place, would be in contravention of international law, are raised as SWORD are tipped off to a clandestine meeting between a number of politicians and a Daiwa representative.

Now, when it is discovered that the Japanese have indeed been developing new technology, the characters seem genuinely surprised, as though an entire country would have hidden itself away from the world in order to develop prettier flowers to give to orphans. Oh no, no, no, no.

The story follows the titular Vexille, a ludicrously buoyant-haired female member of SWORD, who is on a mission to infiltrate Japan in order to send out a scrambler signal to scramble the original scrambler signal so that the signal that scrambles satellites is then scrambled so that the previously scrambled satellites can see Japan clearly.

The film is a CG wonderpiece, that is occasionally effervescent in its glimmering shimmering hoo-hah, or at least it would be if it wasn’t set largely in a gritty hellscape populated by technologically-tortured refugees. What is particularly surprising about this situation is the flawless hair of every single character. I have trouble taming my mop on a good day, and yet it seems as though every Satoshi, Daisuke and Takashi are able to maintain their pristine visual kei headdresses even when eking out a living in an impoverished shanty town. It seems petty to niggle over unrealistically preened hairstyles when a far more significant suspension of disbelief is required to deal with the vast amount of koolwank that the action scenes are teeming with.

As I have just coined the term, I will attempt to define ‘koolwank’. This is where a scene included ludicrously superlative actions whose aim is to make the viewer go: “OMG kool!” and then have a wank. Examples of this from Vexille include a scene where the wing of a plane explodes through a wall of a mansion, forcing Vexille (clad in a futuristic battle-suit reminiscent of Master Chief) to dive to the floor in a blind panic, where a completely un-armoured Daiwa employee coolly ducks his head, reappears after the wing has passed, grabs hold of a handle on the wing as he does so and makes good his escape. Koolwank!

Despite all the koolwank, Vexille does occasionally fall back on the age-old Gundam technique of having skitterish robots that are far too prone to exploding after being grazed by a few bullets. Very unsatisfying.

As well as the pseudo-Master Chiefian suits, Vexille seems to have drawn heavily on other sci-fi sources for design inspiration. A number of unmanned robots roll around looking like the bastard son of Star Wars’ destroyer droids and the clean white turrets of Portal, the drop ships' mechanism is reminiscent of Starship Troopers, and archetypal sand buggy design leaves me unable to point out exactly what it is derivative of. Similarly, giant worm creatures, named Jags, as fresh and unique as they appeared to me, certainly seem to be a novel take on the sand worms of Dune fame rather than a completely original creation. Some sound-bytes feel as though they are cheeky nods to other sources, with one particular scene having a sound so similar to the ‘checkpoint cleared' ambient synth notification of the Gears of War franchise that it cannot possibly be coincidence. On occasion, these similarities make Vexille feel like a ‘Sci-Fi Greatest Hits’ medley, although I would argue that the film has just enough individuality to shine through on its own merits.

The setting and the premise of the film is admirably bleak and hopeless, but they strive all the way through to ruin this by offering hope, which is anathema to my misanthropic tastes. There is almost enough gruelling suffering throughout to satisfy my need for bleakness, but the powerfully corny addendum that closes the film leaves me with the taste of sick in my throat and the whiff of cheddar in my nostrils, but if survivors are what you like in a film then its likely you wont share my mild eye-rolling disgruntlement.

Despite all my sneering, my only real gripe with this film are the occasions where characters decide to mourn the suffering/loss of compatriots in the only way they know, which is to fall to their knees and scream the name of the suffering character-in-question and hold the scream out as long as they possibly can. Rather than the heart-rending tragedy this is meant to convey, instead it merely fills me with embarrassment for the actor stood in a studio repeatedly screaming. There are better ways to convey grief, i.e. quietly.

Apart from this aural terrorising, the acting and the ambient noise is solid, on top of which the soundtrack is utterly fantastic. The backing tracks are an eclectic mix of (according to Wikipedia) “electronic, techno, urumee melam and trance”, with featured artists including Asian Dub Foundation, Basement Jaxx, Boom Boom Satellites, Carl Craig, Dead Can Dance, DJ Shadow M.I.A, Mink and The Prodigy, with the music being ‘handled’ by Paul Oakenfold, whether that refers to editing, mixing or arranging it is uncertain. Though I am not a fan of these genres of music, the tracks are incredibly apt, and usually have a gritty or rocky backbone usually associated with more hardcore varieties of the genres.

All in all Vexille was an enjoyable piece, with certain characters being far more empathetic than is the norm for a feature length production, especially in an action-oriented film. Moreover it is a fascinating hypothetical thought-experiment in the tradition of the best of classic sci-fi works, although if that sounds too high brow or artsy then take solace in the fact that there are plenty of scenes where you will go “OMG kool!” And then you can go and have a wank.

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