Air Doll by Kore-Eda Hirokazu

All children know that their toys start to live when left alone. So does the life-size air-inflated doll (Bae Doo-Na), owned by a middle-aged man suffering from loneliness. She is the perfect substitute for an ideal wife. Until the day she wakes up and discovers she has a heart… Starting a double life as a human, she meets other people who are as empty and lonely inside as she is. They all are scared of getting old, alone. Reality is magical only for her, as she looks at everything with the eyes of a new-born child. Known for exalting, poetically surprising aesthetics, Kore-eda here creates a modern fairytale of Japanese metropolitan life (in fact, of any kind of city in the world), where everybody is searching for tenderness. The film brings up (as well as answering) many crucial questions: What is the meaning of the time between birth and death? Is it good to have a heart after all? What is left when we loose everything? With a deeply feminine approach to sexuality, Kore-eda symbolically draws out the basic need of a woman in love: a little air to breathe. And being paid attention to. Nozomi’s symbolic death on her “birthday” together with another little doll reminds one of a baroque-trash icon of a mother and child. When somebody dies, there’s always a child that has been born, they say. A new life with a new illusion of being irreplaceable and unique. Is it really possible? Or perhaps we just have some moments to breathe, until we leave again.

Laura Talvet