I went to see Warped Forest (by Shunichiro Miki) because a fellow reviewer suggested the film and hyped the shit out of it. Normally, this sort of film is off my radar. Even in my open-minded box-breaking film tastes, I am unfortunately still conservative in some regards. Films that approach the absurd or surrealism just don’t get me going and leave me puzzled. Warped forest is one of these films. Given the aforementioned, I shall try to review the film anyhow.
Nine characters, some of which are actually different in scale and proportion, intermingle and live their lives in a bizarre setting that looks like something that came out of an intense drug induced vision: Pornographic fruits, nipple twisting creatures, super cum guns, obsessions with gaoza, and weird inverted floating pyramids. This isn’t surprising since most characters in the film are under the influence of one drug or another at almost all times in the film. Three teenagers, three sisters, and three best buds get tangled up in webs of dealing with wanting more: love, money, and happiness. Dreams and escapism are themes throughout.
Overall, the imagery was extremely interesting and the coveted fruit bearing trees are most probably the most interesting aspect of this twisted forest although they are not nearly explored enough. The scene where the three buds try to dream tinker without having to pay any pocos (the currency in the film, which consists of nuts stored in ones bellybutton) is very silly and quite memorable. The standout performance is that of the youngest sister, who is on a strange quest in the wild, wielding the cum gun and constantly thinking about gaoza (dumplings).
In the end, the film left me with two things: an aversion to avocados and a dire need to eat some dumplings.
