The enigmatic Takeshi Kitano resumes his position as director and staunch idiosyncratic in this beautified attempt at high emotion and theatrical tragedy. Opening as a Bunraku doll drama, Kitano weaves three stories – a couple in search of forgotten love, a love-lost aging Yakuza and a J-Pop idol's fall from grace – under a series of motifs and ellipses. Often a subdued experience – one communicated through images and semantics before dialogue – Dolls is blanketed in a thick, prevailing sadness, punctuated by the rich-yet-empty framing of characters, isolated as if by the confines of an omnipresent stage setting.

No doubt this is an explicitly beautiful film, populated by photogenic actors hollowed-out, like puppets on a string, but persists as a largely ambiguous, almost alienating experience. While we don't as much empathise with Kitano's characters as we have before in Hana-bi or Kikujiro, we nonetheless grasp at their emotional density – or absence of. The sheer singularity of the film is a statement in itself, which says a lot about its maker, but unfortunately cements the film as an unmarketable object too – despite being attached to the Kitano name.—Tim Wong

» Takeshi Kitano | Japan | 2002