Monday

SABU's 2000 Japanese film opens with a man waking in a luxury hotel room. Takagi has no memory of how he got there; his pockets hold strange objects and there are marks on him he cannot explain. Slowly he recalls the previous day, and the story unfolds backwards: a day that began at an ordinary funeral went completely out of control through a chain of misunderstandings and drink. It opens as comedy and slides step by step into crime and violence, with SABU's familiar method, a small mishap escalating link by link, working here too. Shinichi Tsutsumi's performance holds the tone together. It carries the particular energy of Japanese independent film after the nineties. Who it's for: viewers who like Japanese black comedy and stories told in reverse. Who it's not for: anyone wanting a consistent genre and a realistic plot; the film breaks both deliberately.