“We Are Little Zombies”: Rocking away the pain
When four suddenly orphaned Japanese 13-yearolds meet at a crematory, they instantly connect over their shared inability to cry — and the likely commingled remains of their parents.
“Today, Mommy turned to dust,” Hikari (Keita Ninomiya), a somber video game addict, tells us in a voice-over. It’s not the most lighthearted way to begin a movie, yet “We Are Little Zombies” is nothing if not ebullient. Sometimes exhaustingly so: As if determined to shake the traumatized teenagers out of their desensitized funk, the writer and director, Makoto Nagahisa, throws an entire box of tricks at the screen. Splitting it in two, fading to black and white, writing over it and dunking an entire scene into a fishbowl, he fashions a fantasia of pranks so unexpected and colors so intense (the splendid cinematography is by Hiroaki Takeda), they could make you hallucinate.
For a time, the sheer originality of the picture (Nagahisa’s first, after a career in music video and advertising) and its gonzo execution are more than enough to delight. Mimicking the aesthetics and structure of video games, with multiple levels and more than one choice of ending, the film reveals each of the youngsters’ stories in frenzied flashback.
There’s little Ishi (Satoshi Mizuno), whose parents expired in a restaurant blaze; troubled Yuki (Mondo Okumura), processing parental suicide; beautiful Ikuko (Sena Nakajima), whose jealous mother and philandering father were murdered; and philosophical Hikari, orphaned by a bus crash during an “AllYou-Can-Eat Strawberries” package tour.
“From now on, my life will be flavorless,” Ishi murmurs, as if speaking for all four. Wry humor, absurd dialogue and unflagging energy propel a series of manic adventures — all realized in their own distinctive visual style — that lead, in the best Hollywood tradition, to the kids forming a band. Throughout, Hikari, the movie’s de facto narrator, delivers mordant observations on their journey, an old-school game console rarely leaving his hand. Like his new friends, he’s slowly learning to accept his tragic situation.
Smart, noisy and flashily assured, “We Are Little Zombies” is entirely, gleefully its own thing. Abuse and neglect, drunkenness and disappointment — and a touchingly preserved umbilical cord — cram its hyperactive plot, offering tender clues to problems that predate the children’s bereavement. If we could only scrape away some of the razzle-dazzle, we might be surprisingly moved by the damage lurking beneath.