The Warped Forest

“One-of-a-kind… compelling in the strangest of ways”
– Richard Kuipers, VARIETY

We’re not out of the woods yet! If you’ve been dazed and delighted by the surrealist gem FUNKY FOREST: THE FIRST CONTACT (also resurrected at Fantasia this year), you won’t want to miss its sublime sequel. Witness the wonders of time-warping and dream-tinkering! Giggle at bellybutton sex and pornographic fruit snacks! Squirm when the local baker sneaks out for an illicit encounter with a furry little nipple-sucker! Marvel at the miniature humans co-existing with normal-sized folks, follow a teenage girl’s determined hunt for the elusive Pinky-Panky (armed with a lavishly ornamented penis rifle) and scratch your head at the inverted alien pyramid hovering ominously over the sleepy resort village, where the extraordinary is never out of the ordinary.

Shunichiro Miki, one of the first film’s three directors, flew solo on this one. Fans of FUNKY FOREST will surely recognize his penchant for colourful and uncomfortably erotic objects (imagine David Cronenberg doing Teletubbies!). This sequel of sorts is perhaps a bit more coherent, if that concept even applies in this case. Tangling up the mundane – money hassles, boredom, unrequited love, adultery, and the quest for happiness – with the stunningly bizarre, Miki weaves assorted threads together into a fantastic, feel-good freak show of the finest sort, with brilliant and bang-on set design and art direction. An essential work in the millennial new wave of radical, hallucinogenic Japanese comedies that blend deadpan humour, delirious dream logic, creeping paranoia and empathic, easygoing optimism into the strangest of cinematic brews! – Rupert Bottenberg