LOVE AND PEACE    2015 (ラブ＆ピース, Rabu & Pîsu) Directed by Sion Sono 117 minutes In Japanese with English subtitles

Anyone who knows anything about contemporary Japanese cinema knows that it can be eclectic and, to put it bluntly, mind-blowing. One of the key cult directors making flicks in Japan for the last couple decades is the enigmatic Sion Sono (Love Exposure, Suicide Club). Sono cranks flicks out like a mad man, and of all his most recent creations, this movie is his most beguiling and surprising. The only box you can put it in is the restless 'anti-box' of surrealism, and it's a wild ride of the imagination... and hey, it's even a Christmas movie.

So strap on your cinematic seat belts as we enter the boring world of an office clerk whose big dreams of his youth about being a punk rock singer have faded away. No more rebellion in this meek domesticated soul. But certain events begin to change the course of his life, revolving around a pet turtle. Unexpectedly, through a twisted route of incomprehensible magic, his dreams are granted and he finds himself becoming a Ziggy Stardust Bowie-esque music rock star rocking his way to the top. But since this a crazed trip into insanity, soon kaiju (mutated creature) elements begin to surface... and the movie then bursts at the seams. On the edges, this flick also has a biting social commentary about the commercialization of modern life. For example, when a teenage girl is asked who dropped A-bombs on Japan, she refuses to believe who it was... she insists "The U.S.A. wouldn't do that - they're our friends!"

This is a dream-film comparable to those moments when you wake up and you remember a strange dream you just had and ask yourself, "Where the fuck did that come from?"

This will be a high-definition screening.

And also, if you feel like eating: ROBIN FOOD will be open before the movie. They will present their special Lonely Souls Christmas Dinner on Monday the 24th from 18:00 - 20:00. https://robinfoodkollektief.nl/