Takeshis’

Kitano ‘Beat’ Takeshi, world-famous star of film and television, meets his bleached double, whose name is also Kitano. This Kitano works in a supermarket and is an incredibly insecure aspiring actor who keeps allowing himself to be (ab)used. While he doesn’t even dare ask the star Kitano for an autograph, after their encounter bursts of gunfire à la Sonatine infest his dreams(?). A series of occasionally brain-breaking swaps ensues: which Kitano do we have to take seriously, what is real and what is reality, who is who and who is acting whom? And how can we escape from this maze? Takeshis’ is a fairly controversial film. Critical comment such as ‘narcissistic’ can hardly be a reproach in view of the subject and also the term ‘deconstruction’ cannot be used scathingly, in view of the film’s formal playfulness. The comparison with Otto e mezzo is obvious. In Takeshis’, Kitano takes a solipsistic satirical look at his own oeuvre and would appear – while looking for the exit – not to be able to escape from his bunched-up explosions of violence, tender fantasies of death, amusing choreographies and other idiosyncrasies. Whatever the case may be, the result invites revision: a surrealist, hilarious, occasionally challenging and innovative film that is sometimes irritating and tiresome – as can so often be said of the subversive exercises of idiosyncratic directors. (GT)