Achilles and the Tortoise

One of Zeno's paradoxes from ancient Greece tells of the race between Achilles and the tortoise; though the tortoise has been given a head start, Achilles can never catch up to him. Director Takeshi “Beat” Kitano is a Renaissance man, hugely famous in Japan as a stand-up comedian, TV host, novelist, video game designer, actor, and painter. The third of a trilogy of films exploring creativity and failure (the first two are “Takeshis'” and “Glory to the Filmmaker!” – 32nd CIFF), ACHILLES AND THE TORTOISE is a portrait of a stubborn young man, an Achilles who persists irrationally in trying to achieve success as a painter. Young Machisu is brought up in luxury by his industrialist parents, who collect art and fancy their son a creative genius. He's nothing of the kind, however, and when his parents die, he's thrust out into an uncaring and thoroughly inartistic world. Ignoring everyone's advice to do anything else, he continues painting, and his life takes on an increasingly surreal quality. Obsessively imitating every Western art style but unable to come up with anything new, the adult Machisu (played by Kitano) arrives at madness rather than creativity. ACHILLES AND THE TORTOISE features Takeshi Kitano's own bizarre artworks. (In Japanese with English subtitles) – B.B.