Tôkyô gomi onna

I have to believe that people like Miyuki actually exist, because I knew a guy who did exactly the same thing though for a different purpose. He rummaged through waste paper baskets, garbage bags and incinerators in the hope of finding secret and useful information about the activities taking place in a competing company. A private spy, you might say.

In this film a waitress called Miyuki wants to find out more about Yoshinori a young musician who lives in the apartment above hers so she sifts through his discarded garbage bags in the hope of finding some clues about his private life. Outside her working hours she seems to spend all her time seated on the floor poring over torn letters and photos, cigarette butts and empty packets,a musical score, rotten fruit and even a used condom. Frustrated Miyuki has the disgusting habit of diving her hand into a packet of biscuits while dissecting the contents of the garbage bags. So much for hygiene!

Entertaining for the first ten minutes, it starts to get very boring because the pace is slow and for me there is nothing of interest amongst the garbage any way. The young actress is good and she really gets inside and maintains the character of a discontented girl with an unfulfilled passionate crush on the guy upstairs. Now and again a new discovery in the trash gives the story a bit of a lift. For example, her single-mindedness encourages her to seek out the address of a girl which she finds on a torn letter. Not what I call great drama.

Not exciting enough for me. Warning: Don't waste your precious time!

I actually found this movie fascinating. It had nice shots and the lead actress was captivating. The protagonist showed sanity in her insane little world. The plot wasn't in the foreground here, it was more an exploration of character, and i couldn't stop watching it. There were a few frustrations, mostly to do with the plot, but it made up for all that with the use of the cute lead.

It has a really made-at-home sort of look which i usually don't go for, but it worked. Perhaps some of the shots went on a minute too long, but the point got through. The ending was a little slow to deliver but the movie as a whole was still interesting and worth a watch. Maybe just for those with patience.

When describing Tokyo Trash Baby, the words "weird", "gross" and "disturbing" come to mind. There are definitely a few problems with this film....For one, the English subtitles are horrendous containing many grammatical errors and misspelled words which get a little annoying after a while. Second, there are a few long and meaningless shots that go on forever and serve no purpose other than to suggest that the movie is more artistic than it really is. And lastly, the whole production of the film had that cheap quality to it mainly because of the low budget camera they were using. With all that said, I still really enjoyed this movie. I was engrossed the whole time watching it and for some odd reason, really started to care about the main character towards the end of the film. Also noteworthy is the strange music and the eerie mood that was established throughout. I know that the majority will absolutely loathe Tokyo Trash Baby, but if you're a little peculiar yourself and have the patience, then this movie is certainly recommended.

In "Tokyo Trash Baby" we are dealing with a Miyuki, a coffee-shop waitress, whose platonic love for a musician is manifested by her collecting his trash. She crushes on neighbour/musician Suzuki not by writing stories or shooting pictures, but by vetting his garbage bags and building a shrine . She lives her own life through the imagined, constructed life of his and finally discovering he's a cad. Ryuichi Hiroki sensitively portrayed the character as a parallel to the consumer culture of Tokyo.

Overall, this is part of the 'Love Cinema" series, along with Takashi Miike's "Visitor Q" among others. This is one of my fav as it's a low-key character study, shot on digital video for almost no money, and brings the viewer very close to the experience of Miyuki (Mami Nakamura), which increases sympathy for this troubled character.