Search - Tokyo Trash Baby on DVD

Cigarettes, Cup Ramen, and Cereal

Daitokuji31 | Black Glass | 06/12/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"After spending her days working in a coffee shop in which she his hit on by customers of various ages, Miyuki heads home to her small apartment to indulge in her favorite hobby: digging through her neighbor Yoshinori's trash. No, this does not mean that the girl is a detective in training, but that she is completely obsessed with the struggling musician. The things that she is truly keen on are the things that Yoshinori thrown away almost everyday: empty Marlboro boxes, cereal boxes, cup ramen, etc. For each of these items she has a special place and every night she pilfers more of Yoshinori's garbage adding to her collection and thereby making her apartment a shrine of garbage to Yoshinori. With such an obsession it should not be surprising that Miyuki has not uttered a single word to Yoshinori even when he grunts to her in greeting. Despite this lack of words, Miyuki continues to believe that she is the only one for Yoshinori.



If her obsession had remained in the realm of garbage collection, maybe things could have eventually petered out quietly. However, after discovering some thrown away photos of Yoshinori and his ex-girlfriend, Miyuki has her photo taken several times and pastes her head on several of the photos. How happy can she remain digging through the garbage of the man she loves while he brings a new girl home each night?



A couple years ago I watched Hiroki's most critically acclaimed film Vibrator and was quickly drawn into his sensitive, poignant world of loneliness and solitariness within the modern urban-scape. Tokyo Trash Baby follows certain themes similar to that of Vibrator, but instead of having a female protagonist bury herself in anorexia and alcohol, Miyuki buries herself in material waste and gives her love to these discarded items some of which, such as a discarded shirt, are soaked with Yoshinori's scent. In this way Miyuki discovered a limited physical connectedness with Yoshinori, but in a more spiritual sense her being is empty.



Filmed completely with a digital camera, Tokyo Trash Baby lacks thrills and action and most of the film takes place either in Miyuki's garbage-strewn apartment or the coffee house, but these aspects of the film gives it an edge in displaying the loneliness and confinement one can even experience in a huge place like Tokyo. While not a masterpiece by any means, Tokyo Trash Baby would be a good film to watch for those who are fans of more subtle, quiet directors such as Iwai Shunji and Kore-eda Hirokazu."