Survive Style 5+

A stuttering Japanese hitman outsources all his jobs to an existential British thug. An uber-square suburban dad is hypnotized into thinking he’s a bird. A quiet slacker kills his wife every night and buries her in the woods, only to find her waiting for him at home in his mansion, alive, unscathed and full of vengeance. These are just a few of the bizarre characters present in Gen Sekiguchi’s 2004 Japanese absurdist tour de force “Survive Style 5+”.

“Survive Style 5+” is part Quentin Tarantino, part Marcel Duchamp, and fully Japanese. The film is entirely self aware without ever breaking the fourth wall, lengthy shots with little action and awkward beats leave the audience gritting their teeth, completely at the mercy of Director Sekiguchi, who also edited the film. Sekiguchi rewards the viewer with stunning film compositions, utilizing the entire color pallet and filling the screen with more colors than the mind can often process. This subtle trickery and awareness completely prevents one from criticizing any of Sekiguchi’s decisions as an auteur, as all of it works in conjunction to create the art expressed on screen.

The film's story is created through the creative weaving of various subplots, all vaguely intersecting at various junctures, leaving the final message of the film ambiguous but strangely uplifting. Is this film about learning how many times you need to kill your wife until you learn to love her? Is it about leaving your desk job behind and learning to fly like a bird, no matter the odds? Is it about relearning the meaning of Christmas? Or is it about determining your function in life? I’d say it’s about all of the above, though the last one best sums everything up. The film’s title can serve as a guide for us, as we’re given 5 different subplots, each one pitting the protagonist into some sort of survival situation. In the end it comes down to determining why we’ve been put on this planet, and the euphoria that one feels when they finally find their purpose.

Sometimes hilarious, sometimes moving, but always visually stunning, “Survive Style 5+” is the sort of artistic statement rarely seen in mainstream Hollywood films today, often due to budget constraints or producer interference. The film is cool and stylized, with an uber-fun soundtrack, and just waiting for a hip American market to catch wind of it. Sadly, it’s pretty hard to get a DVD copy that runs on NTSC region DVD players (i.e. American ones), I found my copy on Ebay. If you don’t live in America, then look around and it shouldn’t be too hard to find a copy that will work on your DVD player. But, yeah, it’s totally worth buying.