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'Starfish Hotel' is a stunning sophomore outing from Japan-based filmmaker John Williams. A genre-bender that is part mystery, fantasy, film noir and kitchen-sink drama, Starfish Hotel keeps you guessing right through to its shocking but wholly cathartic conclusion.Salaryman Arisu scurries rodent-like between packed commuter trains, humdrum office paper-pushing, and the Ikea hell that is his apartment, retreating for solace into the mystery novels of Jo Kuroda, set in the menacing and unknowable Darkland. A man with a past, the memories of an affair he had years before start to seep into his everyday life. When the motif of Kuroda's novels suddenly becomes a reality for Arisu, the walls between fact and fiction, past and present, begin to dissolve, with horrifying consequences.Shot in Tokyo, Tochigi and Fukushima, Williams sets about dismantling the idyllic picture of the Japanese countryside he presented in his impressive award-winning debut 'Firefly Dreams.' Instead of verdant hillocks and sun-drenched babbling brooks, we get dilapidated, abandoned houses, disused mines and Shibuya sewers. DP Benito Stranggio paints a strangely lush canvas of browns and greys, topped with erotically-charged reds. One shot, of commuters flooding out of Shinagawa Station, frames a sea of bobbing heads in the bottom sixth of the screen, capturing perfectly the anonymous drudgery oppressing Arisu. Directing and photography are pitch perfect, and the actors chip in with performances that, in the case of Akira Emoto, border on the sublime. Koichi Sato balances on the high-wire between charismatic and bonkers, while relative newcomer Kiki shows with her eyes why Arisu is still haunted by her character years later. It is surely Emoto, however, who will garner the awards, for a truly frightening performance as Mister Trickster. If Hollywood ever re-makes this, only a Taxi Driver-era De Niro could match Emoto for sheer visceral force.Curiously, because Mister Trickster is a big rabbit various Donnie Darko analogies have been made. If you must look for an influence, forget Donnie Darko and even Murakami - the main character is called Arisu and he follows a big rabbit till he ends up in a place called Wonderland. Arisu in Wonderland - geddit? The Darko similarity was first pointed out in a Variety review, and various reviewers since, here on IMDb and elsewhere, have claimed it as their own, occasionally in order to accuse Williams of, ahem, lacking originality. Ignore such disingenuous comments; Starfish Hotel could reasonably be compared to Jakob's Ladder or The Machinist in terms of tone and story. A more intriguing comparison is with William's debut Firefly Dreams, where similar themes of human connection across barriers are explored (young/old and country/city in Firefly, reality/imagination and past/present in Starfish). Indeed, at key points in both films, characters appear to reach out to each other from beyond the grave. Ultimately, however, Starfish Hotel is a unique work that will entertain and provoke you on its own terms. Having seen it with a large group of friends, the consensus was, "We want to see it again." Starfish is both playful and challenging in the way it moves back and forth in time and space. A key element in the film's creation of an otherworldly atmosphere is the score - a haunting soundtrack that played in my head weeks after I saw the film. Despite the fantasy elements, over-sized vermin, eroticism and insanity, this is a film primarily about character. It is about longing, loss, and the need to belong. See it with grown-up friends.
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