Nobuhiro Yamashita could rightly be considered Japan’s answer to Jim Jarmusch: as evidenced through his oddly affecting No One’s Ark. With his latest offering, Linda Linda Linda, Yamashita is clearly bidding for a younger mainstream audience. Though turned saccharine sweet, he retains and even refines his acute appreciation of laconic and deadpan comedy.

A sort of This Is Spinal Tap goes to school in Japan – Linda Linda Linda is imbued with a disarming sense of adolescent awkwardness. The film’s title is taken from a deliriously catchy Blue Hearts’ J-punk track; a song four members of an all girl band resolve to play at their end-of-season high school festival – if only they can make it to the venue on time.

With just three days to practice the girls struggle to overcome sleep deprivation – complete with bizarre Gondry-like dream sequences – hormone-addled romances, school commitments and cultural dislocation, yet never loose faith in the transcendent power of their pop-punk friendship.

Filmed in a slow-burning pseudo-documentary style, Yamashita captures perfectly his subjects’ listless energy and acts of muted high school hegemony. Bae Doona as the timid Japanese-speaking Korean exchange student steals the show. It’s hard not to fall for her unyielding determination to rock out.

Watch Lind Linda Linda. You’ll be humming the Blue Hearts’ tune for days.—Caleb Starrenburg