SHINBORU/ SYMBOL

Waking up in his pajamas, a Japanese man finds himself in a stark white room with no doors. As he fumbles through the numerous phallic bulges that decorate the walls, he accidentally activates a strange mechanism that turns the room into a mousetrap. Random objects begin to fly in all directions - among them a bento box containing sushi, a pink toothbrush and a rope. Can these be his way out? In the meantime, somewhere is sun-scorched Mexico, a masked wrestler prepares for the match of  his life. His bizarre family is gathered around him, unable to understand his reluctance to enter the ring. How are these seemingly incoherent stories linked together? Hitoshi Matsumoto is a director that likes to play with the viewers' mind and trick their perceptions. On that level, "Symbol" can be viewed as an exploration of how symbolism works, a game of archetypes, made up from the kind of dreams you see at night but never seem to remember when you wake up.