is a 2009 Japanese

surrealist Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to l ...

comedy Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...

film directed and starring by

Hitoshi Matsumoto , commonly known as , is a Japanese film director and one of Japan's most popular comedians and TV hosts. He is one half of the comedy duo Downtown alongside Masatoshi Hamada. Like Hamada, Matsumoto was born and raised in Amagasaki, Hyōgo Prefe ...

.The Village Voice
/ref> It was nominated for the

Asian Film Awards Asian may refer to: * Items from or related to the continent of Asia: ** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia ** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia ** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...

in the categories of Best Actor and Best Visual Effects. It has not received a U.S. release. The film was greeted negatively by Japanese audiences; however, it received a surprisingly warmer reaction in the West, despite not being commercialized outside Japan.

Plot

The film contains two major story lines. The first takes place in Mexico and centers around a

masked wrestler A wrestling mask is a fabric-based mask that some Professional wrestling, professional wrestlers wear as part of their in-ring persona or gimmick (professional wrestling), gimmick. Professional wrestlers have been using masks as far back as 1915 ...

called Escargot Man and his family as they prepare for a match that night. His family worries about him since the luchador is growing older and his slated opponent is stronger and younger than him. Nevertheless, his son and father are excited to see the match. These portions of the film are realistic, with dialogue in Spanish. In the second, more surreal storyline, a Japanese man wakes up in an empty white room with no apparent ceiling from which he struggles to escape. The two-story lines eventually indirectly converge.

Production

Matsumoto not only wrote the script and directed the film, he also stars as the man trapped in the white room. Being that large parts of the narrative is based on non-verbal communication and set in a singular space, Symbol is comparable to films like Aragami (Ryuhei Kitamura) and the Cube film series.

References

External links

* 2000s Japanese-language films Films directed by Hitoshi Matsumoto 2000s Japanese films Surrealist films {{2000s-Japan-film-stub