Event

PEEP 'TV' SHOW

Dir. Yutaka Tsuchiya, 2003
Japan. 98 min.
In Japanese with English subtitles.

Director Tsuchiyas career has focused on the search for identity among Japanese youth, particularly the dark paths it can take. PEEP TV SHOW follows kids from Shibuya, Tokyo, obsessed with outward appearances and the internet, as they navigate the city. Considering this generation grew up under constant surveillance, their ingrained exhibitionism and voyeurism seems natural.

Cynical young man Hasegawa runs a website hosting his secretly-shot footage of unsuspecting people, Peep TV, in the hopes of capturing a realer reality. Gothic Lolita Moe (also the scripts co-writer) is a fan of the site, and after the two have a chance encounter on the street, she wants in on the business. As the anniversary of 9/11 draws near, the project grows increasingly darker.

Woven around actual surveillance footage and news clips and shot on DV, the film proudly wears its no-budget rawness on its sleeve. Scenes switch from talking-head documentary confessional to dramatic narrative in the same shot, and nearly everyone onscreen plays themselves. Watching and being watched are nearly interchangeable internet porn is an obsession for sexless characters whose outfits constantly broadcast a chosen persona. A collection of events more than a thorough narrative, PEEP TV SHOWs fragmentation works all the better to reflect the disaffection, isolation and search for meaning of this generation.