My God, My God, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?

Shinji Aoyama's 2005 Japanese film describes an epidemic in the near future. A disease transmitted through images drives people to suicide; two noise musicians live in the countryside and their sound is said to be able to stop it. The film barely explains its science fiction premise. The weight falls on the act of recording; in long sequences the musicians gather sounds from nature and transform them through feedback. Tadanobu Asano and Masaya Nakahara play the musicians and Aoi Miyazaki the sick young woman. The images are wide and static; the sound design is the film's real subject. The closing performance is very long and physically overwhelming. Who it's for: those curious about experimental Japanese cinema and noise music. Who it's not for: viewers expecting legible science fiction; the film never explains the epidemic and keeps suicide as its subject.