The first time we lay eyes on Ikeda(Hideo Nakaizumi), you would never guess that he had it in him to play a killer. But there he is, hammer in hand, striking an old woman repeatedly, without a sliver of mercy across his face. Ikeda makes a convincing murderer. But when the cameras aren't rolling, he's his old normal self. He was only, as Master Thespian used to proclaim on "Saturday Night Live", "...acting!" With his shorn hair and black school uniform, you would never guess that Ikeda once wore an orange dress and made up his face for a trans-gendered play. Contrary to popular belief, an actor need not stay in character in order to coax a good performance out of the self. Among other things, "Kamyu nante shiranai" rebukes the school of method acting.
Ikeda is the lead in a student film called "The Bored Assassin". It's the film within "Kamyu nante shiranai", a sort of riff on Robert Altman's "The Player" that celebrates the history of cinema like Bernardo Bertolucci's "The Dreamers". "Kamyu nante shiranai" shows us the day-to-day operation of a film crew in pre-production. Their world is a cloistered one. Even Matsukawa(Shuji Kashiwabara) has no patience for outsiders, and that's including his needy girlfriend Yukari(Hinano Yoshikawa).
Professor Nakajo(Hirotaro Honda) is Matsukawa's mentor, a filmmaker in exile by his own makings. He still mourns for his late wife. Nakajo returns to the director's seat after a disastrous date. This second chance is made possible by Yukari's sudden hospitalization. We can only guess what's going on in the professor's mind, as an actress, around his dead wife's age, is being bludgeoned to death with such methodical precision. Perhaps, the filmmaker punishes himself for desiring a young woman by reimagining his wife's passing in the most violent and brutal fashion possible, or maybe the old woman's murder is a revenge in code against Yukari.
"The Player" was to the production of a studio film, as "Kamyu nante shiranai" is to the production of a independent(or shoestring-budgeted) film. One similarity stands out, even more so than the extended long-take that opens the film. The two screenwriters who pitch their idea to the Tim Robbins-character, sell-out when they sign-off on the happy ending. In "Kamyu nante shiranai", Hisada(Ai Maeda) complains to an associate that she'd been rejected by a television station yet again. Hisada will sell-out the first chance she gets.
Ikeda is the lead in a student film called "The Bored Assassin". It's the film within "Kamyu nante shiranai", a sort of riff on Robert Altman's "The Player" that celebrates the history of cinema like Bernardo Bertolucci's "The Dreamers". "Kamyu nante shiranai" shows us the day-to-day operation of a film crew in pre-production. Their world is a cloistered one. Even Matsukawa(Shuji Kashiwabara) has no patience for outsiders, and that's including his needy girlfriend Yukari(Hinano Yoshikawa).
Professor Nakajo(Hirotaro Honda) is Matsukawa's mentor, a filmmaker in exile by his own makings. He still mourns for his late wife. Nakajo returns to the director's seat after a disastrous date. This second chance is made possible by Yukari's sudden hospitalization. We can only guess what's going on in the professor's mind, as an actress, around his dead wife's age, is being bludgeoned to death with such methodical precision. Perhaps, the filmmaker punishes himself for desiring a young woman by reimagining his wife's passing in the most violent and brutal fashion possible, or maybe the old woman's murder is a revenge in code against Yukari.
"The Player" was to the production of a studio film, as "Kamyu nante shiranai" is to the production of a independent(or shoestring-budgeted) film. One similarity stands out, even more so than the extended long-take that opens the film. The two screenwriters who pitch their idea to the Tim Robbins-character, sell-out when they sign-off on the happy ending. In "Kamyu nante shiranai", Hisada(Ai Maeda) complains to an associate that she'd been rejected by a television station yet again. Hisada will sell-out the first chance she gets.