AnyMart

Sakai is the assistant manager at a convenience store, his working days determined by routine. Without any hint of emotion, he deflects the annoying customers and follows the rigid rules which the store owner imposes on the staff. When the ambitious Ogawa is employed part time, Sakai increasingly begins to question his role in the system. The monotonous world of the AnyMart gradually unravels until the boundary between life and death eventually becomes dissolved by the ghosts called forth by consumerism. Carried by current young Nippon stars, this feature debut by commercial filmmaker Yusuke Iwasaki, himself a son of a long-term store owner, uses a crazy mix of off-beat horror, socially critical drama and absurd comedy to home in on fears about work as well as the feelings of powerlessness towards society, with which the younger generations increasingly see themselves confronted. In the midst of a sea of power lines and grey apartment complexes, the convenience store becomes a heterotopia. Is there still hope in the cold world of late capitalism or must we eternally haunt the sterile aisles of the AnyMart, like chickens packed in plastic?