Ramblers (Lializumu no yado) Movie Review:


Now this was a new experience for me, a Japanese stoner movie. Kinoshita and Tsuboi arrive at a train station in rural Japan to meet a friend, who doesn’t show up. Instead of heading home they hang around, and slack.

And slack is what they do. And they do little all else. Our heroes wander from guesthouse to guest house, street-to-street, go fishing, mini golf and have hardly any intelligent conversation. Sounds really dull doesn’t it?

But it’s surprisingly refreshing, due to the dry, droll performances from the guys, with some real deadpan delivery of gags, such as when Tsuboi says to Kinoshita “you’re not much of a conversationalist”. It comes at just the right point in the movie when you’re beginning to wonder if Kinoshita has anything to say for himself. Or when they get some new digs from a guy they meet. He promptly leaves them in the house, only for his family to return. Rather sweet that, instead of the expected histrionics, they cook them supper without a single complaint, all rather surreal.

Or the introduction of Atsuko who the boys meet on the beach, who slacks with them for a few days only to disappear, without any explanation of anything, or why she’s there. Or why she’s leaving, totally weird, but funny!

I guess the easiest way to describe Ramblers, is a stoner movie without the drugs, Silent Bob & Jay without the Attention Deficit Disorder incessant yakking.

It's a really rather sweet little movie that meanders along with gentle gags that had me laughing out loud. Not to everyone’s taste I’ll readily admit, as the humour could be too slight for everyone’s taste. Which the guys admit themselves in their dialogue with “ I don’t get it at all.”

Gary Gray

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