Air Doll, an art film in Japan, is about a doll that comes to life and explores Tokyo roupacomo dressed in a demure French. Sounds like a recipe for disaster films. But the director Koreeda Hirokazu (Still Walking, Hana), this simple idea turns into a rich and charming fable that touches on fundamental questions of existence.

Animated with touches of magical realism, the film humorous attempts to define the elusive je ne sais quoi that makes us human, able to feel and express love, goodness and truth. The film begins where Hideo (Itsuji Itao), a waiter lonely middle-aged, returns to his tiny apartment. Their misery melts when he enthusiastically greets his companion - a doll named Nozomi.

"You're beautiful," says Hideo and makes love to her in a scene shocking, disturbing, funny and will make you squirm in your place. (That sound scary creaky-crunchy meat of plastic does not help).

The next morning, Nozomi comes to life. In a sequence of 15 minutes without dialogue, Korean actress Bae Doona brilliantly uses his face and body to express the confusion of the doll and happy to be alive. "I met with the heart," she says in the narration. "With a heart that I should not have."

Koreeda has lovingly charts the progress of Nozomi from a sketch of a child playing in the sandbox to a sophisticated woman who devours books, draw pictures, and philosophizes about life. Tragically, Hideo Nozomi sees only as a dead thing. It uses dolls as a substitute for his ex-girlfriend and a way to avoid facing their loss. When Hideo Nozomi discovers that she is alive seeks to become inanimate again.

Nozomi reaches its peak when it falls for a video store clerk. Unlike Hideo, Junichi (Arata) helps keep Nozomi inflated (she is a doll of breath, do not forget) not by a bomb, but breathe your breath loving it. Moral of the story: we are not born with a soul, we got one through our relationships with others. Treat people as objects and they behave like objects.

Koreeda has a tendency to get heavy with their metaphors. He goes to sea in a scene that is the manufacturer who created Nozomi. And at 125 minutes, his sudden is too long. But these are petty issues. Air Doll covers a part of the land on the same line of Pinocchio and other stories postmodern as AI: Artificial Intelligence, but avoiding its easy sentimentality.

Air Doll (Kuki Ningyo)

Genre: Drama

MPAA Rating: Not Rated

Running time: 02:05

Rating:

Cast: Joe Odagiri, Miu Naraki, Sumiko Fuji, Arata, Tomomi Maruyama, Itsuji Itao; Mari Hoshino, Du-na Bae, Ryo Iwamatsu, Tasuku Emoto

Directed by: Hirokazu Koreeda

Year: 2009