Barren Illusion

Kurosawa's third film in a year, made with students at the Film School of Tokyo, is a dystopian sci-fi romance. In a near future in which allergies are epidemic, music producer Haru (Takeda) half-heartedly dates post office clerk and mail thief Michi (Tadano). He searches for violent ways to reactivate his life, she dreams of escaping abroad; both volunteer to test a new drug which may cause impotence. But the storyline is fragmentary and oblique, the plotting is gnomic and the pace is languid; it adds up to less than the sum of its parts.