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Wool 100% — dvd movie review

by Kris ⋅ June 22, 2008 ⋅ Comment now ⋅ Subscribe RSS

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dreamlogic.net's MOVIE REVIEW Wool 100%

Director: Mai Tominaga
Starring: Kyoko Kishida, Kazuko Yoshiyuki
Genre: Japan, Curious, Fantasy

With the whimsy of The Shoe Fairy (which had the whimsy of Amelie) and the languid fluidity of a glorified French film spurns Wool 100%, a Japanese movie with a European pulse. Vivid visuals and an enigmatic aura enhances the stark lack of dialogue and reliance on strong character gestures.

Two reclusive spinster sisters, similar in looks (both sprouting silver bobs) and mannerisms (although one is traditionally Japanese in dress and cuisine, the other westernized) with a penchant for hoarding found items and painstakingly painting each item in a collaborative posterity journal, make their large house small with all of their treasures, spilling out into the yard. One fine day, they come across a rather iconic bushel of bright red yarn, which becomes both a blessing and a curse.

The yarn they cart home attracts a bratty girl with a perfectionist vexation towards her lumpy knitting (her laments a sonic roar) and a destructive nature (stabs everything the women owns with her knitting needles, repeatedly rips apart her sweater only to rebuild). The frightening girl forces her way into the sisters’ lives, quick to ridicule their loyalty to material goods. What she doesn’t know is that the objects are loyal to the two women and each item takes its turn assaulting the girl in an animated jazz-march saxophone sketch explosion where the sisters’ calligraphied illustrations come to life, reminiscent of Shel Silverstein’s feverish, immature scrawl. As the objects inadvertently destroy themselves or are destroyed by “Knit-Again”, the sisters suddenly take joy in spring cleaning/burning, warming to the thought of treating this girl as a new object to foster and adore. She unwittingly becomes both a maternal and filial figure.

It is human nature to gather beyond necessity and yet the fact the women remain entirely impulsive in their selection makes them a tad saner than those who succumb to a premeditated/forced/prepared collection. At least this proves that they are able to make their own discerning decisions, while also supporting childish whims. It’s fascinating to see the ageless personalities (where naiveté overcomes calendars), and their disorder creating order schema, for example, they can always rely on the cuckoo clock’s chimes to signify breakfasts’ close. Sometimes adhering to a routine is easier than facing your woes, just as filling your life with junk is easier than accepting it’s empty.

dreamlogic.net's MOVIE REVIEW Wool 100% Wool 100% dipped slightly south towards the end, in suppressed-memory flashback mode, with a tertiary WWII reference and abandonment expression, both maternal and lovelorn, so what was possibly meant to be an explanation becomes an even wilder spin (wilder due to the irony that it became milder). The more it tried to be weird, the more predictably mundane it became. At first I was bitter about this, although now I can appreciate the contrast.

While there is definite merit in its fun with miniatures and camera angle play, cutesy wit, delicious pacing, and the possible pseudo persona of Knit-Again and philosophy concerning loss and the lost and found, the irksome catalyst in Wool 100% was, well, irksome! Perhaps this is a commentary on how humans resist inner conflict resolution, even when it is as blatant as a psycho blaring from the rooftops about her sucky ephemeral sweater again.