Some magic, a book and Paco

VIEW THIS PAGE Taiwan is far from being unfamiliar with the vibrantly shameless expression of Japanese kitsch and its passion for pastiche, but the unrestrained outpouring that is Paco and the Magical Book (Pako to Maho no Ehon), a film by Japanese director Tetsuya Nakashima, would be hard to find. From the poster you might think it a film for young children, and for the first few minutes this illusion is preserved — rather worryingly. Then suddenly the director drops you breathless with shock into what at first appears to be some kind of otaku paradise of playschool eroticism.

There are certainly elements of this, but there is very much more. So much, indeed, that it is virtually impossible to get a grip on where you are, and director Tetsuya Nakashima seems to take delight in keeping you off balance.

The film opens in panto style with exactly the kind of grotesquely colorful costumes and exaggerated acting that might suggest you had walked into a show designed for the under eights. Minutes later, you are slammed into the generous cleavage of F-cup sex kitten and model Eiko Koike, who is wearing a beehive, vampire teeth and a super-mini nurse costume.

She is Masami, a nurse at a gothic horror house of cuteness, where the two main characters, Onuki (Koji Yakusho), a business tycoon who looks like he escaped from the set of a Tarantino martial arts fantasy, and Paco (Ayaka Wilson), the embodiment of all that is sweet and innocent about childhood. A second nurse is played by model and singer Anna Tsuchiya, sporting a heavily pierced punk look, who is secretly in love with child star, now turned drug addict, Muromachi, played by TV idol Satoshi Tsumabuki. Another patient at the hospital is Kinomoto, a drag queen who repeatedly breaks into the most horrific karaoke renditions of saccharine love ballads, played by another TV idol, Jun Kunimura. The musical score ranges from thrash metal to lullaby. Pseudo-punk attitude, lap-dance eroticism, the Hello Kitty culture of cute, fairy-tale sentimentality and a biting cynicism about the shallow posturing of a style-obsessed civilization all have a part in this film.

The central thread is a story of Onuki, a grumpy old man who thinks nothing of smacking the cute title character in the face, but who finds redemption and humanity in his growing affection for a girl who only has a memory that lasts for one day. Paco’s life is a Groundhog Day of perpetual rediscovery, allowing her to soften the old man despite his horrendous treatment of her. Their relationship blossoms through Onuki’s reading of a pop-up storybook about a violent frog king, his death and redemption. The film switches from pantomime to animation to CGI effects that allow the pop-up book to become a living part of the cinematic set.

Paco and the Magical Book may look a complete mess at first glance, but Nakashima manages to hold it all together, not simply referring outward to his clearly over-abundant supply of cultural references, but also internally, constantly making jokes at his own expense, and not allowing even the culminating tragic moment to be other than just another piece in his elaborate puzzle. But for all its formalistic fun and games, Nakashima never totally undermines a sentimental core of the film. The central fairy tale, as revealed through the reading of the magical book, remains intact. There is a beating heart beneath all the glitz and glitter of Nakashima’s overactive imagination, and for the audience, there are a few tears amid the laughter. VIEW THIS PAGE