Cinema has a long history of men who wake up in an empty room with no recollection of how they got there or where they are. Vincenzo Natali visit this realm twice, with the haunting CUBE and the hilarious NOWHERE, Shinya Tsukamoto sent his protagonist to hell in HAZE, Chan Wook-Park's OLDBOY used it to start off a tour de force, SAW wasted the potential of the idea on stupid flashbacks and the promising BURRIED that will hit theaters soon is but a thinly veiled re-imagination of this theme. Somehow, the idea of being "lost" in a confined space, trapped by somebody we can't see and held due to reasons we don't understand, seems to be a central fear hidden in the subconsciousness. Maybe that is because we humans just love our freedom way too much, maybe it is because we fear of being treated as lab rats, but it strikes us every time once we see somebody in such a painful situation.
This is where actor/director Hitoshi Matsumoto comes in. But the director/star of BIG MAN JAPAN has not just done another CUBE-re-imgination - he twisted the idea of a trapped individual into an interesting, hilarious and engaging slapstick comedy.
So our nameless protagonist wakes up in... a white room, with basically nothing in it... except for... well, see above... as the plot unfolds, a few thousand of those will appear - when pressed, each will set free something completely random: eating sticks, a vase, manga-books, a pillow, a rope, sushi, a toy - you name it. However, the "buttons" have a tendency to come up with exactly the thing our hero needs/wants the least, causing foreseeable, but hilarious dilemmas.
Oh, and did I mention the dub plot of Escargot-Man, a (washed up?) mexican wrestler who seems not so keen on his upcoming match?? Well, there is.
Even if SYMBOL sounds like a mess - it is not. It is funny, it is daring and it is absolutely brilliant. The only flaw I could find was the ending, which was for its intended scope too small, yet with what came before in the film too ambitious. However, that seemed to just have been me, since everybody else loved the ending.
One way or another - this is one of the funniest films of all year!! An absolute must see!
Rating - 9/10
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