Junk Head

In the future the human species can no longer reproduce because of genetic interference. A handful of people with extended lifespans are left on the surface. Underground there are artificial beings created centuries ago as slaves, and they can reproduce. A scientist goes down. His body is torn apart during the descent and only the head is left. The ones below find the head, fit it to a body and set it walking. He descends layer by layer; each level has other creatures, other languages and another danger. Takahide Hori wrote, directed, built the puppets and voiced them. It is a Japanese production. Hori was working as an interior designer and started making films at forty. The work first appeared as a half hour short; the short drew attention at festivals abroad in 2017. The feature came out of seven years of work, opened in Japan on 26 March 2021 and took more than one hundred and thirty million yen. The film is made of more than one hundred and forty thousand frames and every puppet came from Hori's own hands. The matter it treats is reproduction and existence; the created species has outlasted its creator. The spoken language is invented; subtitles are given but most of the story is read off the images. The film uses violence and grotesque design together and turns comic in between. The narrative does not close; the story is left to continue. Its limit is structure; the plot is loose, the characters do not separate, and the ending is open. Who it is for: viewers who like stop motion and dark science fiction. Who it is not for: it is grotesque, scattered, and the ending unfinished.