Nowhere Man

Adapted from an avant-garde comic-strip by Yoshiharu Tsuge, this debut feature by the actor Naoto Takenaka is like a Japanese answer to the average 'Film on Four': earnest, quirky, over-emphatic and a little preachy. The meandering plot, a shaggy-dog story without the punchline, follows a down-at-heel comic-strip author whose work no longer sells; he tries to support his family by selling 'aesthetic' stones, tangles with the crook who controls the stone market, gets new inspiration from a mysterious bird-man, and winds up doing the lowliest work he can think of. As protests against materialism and the Japanese work ethic go, this is on the weak side, but it has a certain languorous charm.