Tokyo!

The ambitious anthology Tokyo! aims to present three singular visions of the city by internationally renowned, non-Japanese directors. Michel Gondry’s opener, “Interior Design,” is the star: a funny, fantastical, emotionally resonant look at a young couple drifting apart, and arguably the best half-hour of film from 2008. Korean director Joon-ho Bong made the closer, a sweet story of a recluse thrust into human contact by a cute pizza girl and an apocalyptic earthquake. But just as the solid Scorsese/Allen contributions to New York Stories were obscured by Francis Ford Coppola’s spoiled-rotten second act, Tokyo! is almost derailed by Leos Carax’s overlong, excruciating “Merde.” As a middle child with a lifelong inferiority complex, I feel that we’re rarely overindulged (really, you’re lucky to reach adulthood without your organs being harvested), so why doesn’t the same hold true for cinematic triptychs?