Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes

Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes
Original title:Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes
Director:Junta Yamaguchi
Release:Cinema
Running time:70 minutes
Release date:Not communicated
Rating:
A cafe owner discovers that the television in his establishment is suddenly showing images from the future, but only two minutes into the future.

Mulder's Review

One can imagine the discussion between the scriptwriter Makoto Ueda and the director Junta Yamaguchi to give life to this fantastic comedy which takes place practically in a single place (a café) and a postulate only that the video-surveillance system of this establishment shows without any logical explanation and suddenly images of the future, but only two minutes after the events in progress. Without any special effects (the budget is reduced to the minimum) and shot with a simple iphone such a subject could have gone totally unnoticed or could have been the first film of a film student wishing to impress his professors by showing that a simple idea very well used can give birth to an ambitious project. 

While most science fiction films dealing with time travel use spectacular and in some cases outrageous special effects, screenwriter Takahiro Otsuki delivers a story that is very close in concept to Harold Ramis' Groundhog Day (1993), in which time travel resulted in an endlessly repeating day for a weatherman who found himself stuck in a small Pennsylvania town. In Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes, it is indeed the use of these two minutes in time that makes this film a jubilant comedy with characters not trying to understand where this temporal dysfunction comes from but to use it in different possible ways. 

We see the main character Aya (Riko Fujitani) surrounded by her waitress Kato (Kazunari Tosa) and her friends Komiya (Gota Ishida), Ozawa (Yoshifumi Sakai) and Tanabe confronting this temporal dysfunction and then using it to amaze each other. It is also interesting to see that this film is based on a theater group (Europe Kikzku) and that this film looks like a filmed play in some of its features, but director Junta Yamaguchi avoids the static side of the theater to our great pleasure. 

Moreover, this film shows once again the importance of a good script and powerful dialogues to give a real framework to a film. Of course, the basic idea of seeing people talking to themselves through different representations of themselves in time is not new (we can only advise you to see Bill and Ted Face the Music (2020)) but Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes doesn't try to sell what it is not and relies on a multitude of discoveries that are worth discovering this film.

Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (Droste no hate de bokura)
Directed by Junta Yamaguchi
Produced by Takahiro Otsuki
Written by Makoto Ueda 
Starring Aki Asakura, Riko Fujitani, Gota Ishida, Yoshifumi Sakai, Kazunari Tosa 
Cinematography: Junta Yamaguchi
Edited by Junta Yamaguchi 
Production companies : 
Running time: 70 minutes

Seen on August 04, 2021 (Fantasia Festival)

Mulder's Mark: