Picnic

An incredibly ambitious piece for 70 minutes that sometimes veers into being downright bizarre, but maintains some grounding with the nostalgic 90s atmosphere (for which I must credit Noboru Shinoda yet again).

I love it, very nice short movie from Shunji Iwai.. Tadanobu asano and Chara are simply awesome... and I love the story, cant stop watching the end over and over again

This was really just a bunch of nonsense that rarely interested me.

The plot barely makes any sense, it's more like a vehicle for the music and cinematography that are crazy stylish and memorable.

Shunji Iwai is one of those Japanese weirdos... It's a fool's errand to try to understand what lies behind the story of three mental patients and their trip on top of the wall to see the world end. I have a suspicion that Iwai just played this one by ear - 'this seems deep, let's film it'. It also feels like a student film, at modest running time of ~70 minutes it is either overdrawn or too short to get the message across. Anime goth kids are sure to like it, but I have very mixed feelings.

Man, Iwai is really weird.

Manages to set a certain atmosphere with the nice photography, but otherwise pretty stupid. Three young adults of varying degrees of craziness go venturing outside their loony bin. Lots of not-very-successful attempts to be insightful, and brief flashes of Lynch/Cronenberg/Miike influence only make matters worse. You've got to be real careful with insanity in movies, it's too easy to strike the wrong note. Here, Iwai rarely hits a good note, instead all we get is pretty noise.