Pompo the Cinephile: An Exciting Ode to Cinema (Review)
A world film that also contains a question about the creative act: welcome to Nyallywood Babylo!
It’s first of all a question of universe: we are in Nyallywood, version Japanime from Hollywood, where the trophies are called Nyascars, where Pompo the producer (who looks like Biscuit from Hunter X Hunter) is a superstar because she knows how to make blockbusters like no one else, of course, except that in Nyallywood, blockbusters are Asylum-style B movies with girls in bikinis, guns and tentacle monsters… In this charming universe, Gene, Pompo’s depressed and overworked assistant, is going to realize his dream: to make his first film, a drama between The melody of happiness And Maestrowith an unknown actress and a cinema veteran. The film will embark on a maddening ode to creation and tinkering in fashion shonenquestioning in passing the very notion of film – or even of a work of art in general, mind you. A brilliant scene at the beginning of the film sets the tone: how to create a 15-second teaser from a dud where a Nyallywood superstar takes down a Cthulhu avatar with an assault rifle while half naked? Then, Gene shoots, and above all must put in order the 72 hours of rushes of his work, putting, as in any good shonen his life in danger on the editing table to deliver a real film… OK, the ode to cinema is a little naive (it all falls apart a bit if we wonder why the hero doesn’t simply hire an editing team), but the result is worth the risks.
By Takayuki Hirao. Duration 1h34. Released on July 3, 2024
