It's Japanese Postmodernism at its finest, which really isn't saying that much. This movie is purely "art" for the sake of making "art"; in as much that you have to draw your own conclusions as to what points the director was trying to make, because he's not going to be bothered to make them on his own. It's one hundred percent self aware and it smacks you across the face with its own self awareness again and again until you curl up in a ball and cry like a little girl. Effective film making? Yes. Good film making? Not necessarily. There's really not that much meat to this movie; the characters never really develop in a way that's meaningful or even worthwhile, and it's all slopped together in the end with a half-assed statement on "redemption". If this is the future of film making, count me out.