Tony Takitani (2005)

The name "Tony" singled him out from his classmates in Japan. The fact that he nearly raised himself while his father was on the road playing jazz was another thing that made him different. He was almost bred to be alone and his skill at precise, but cold, drawings gave him the perfect lonely career: bent over a desk producing technical illustrations. When he falls for the colorful and much-younger Eiko, his loneliness dissipates but a fear that it will some day return is constant.

I just loved this movie -- at first I didn't know what to think because it's so unlike anything else. It's narrated in an almost monotone with the characters sometimes raising their heads to meet the camera and deliver a line directly to us, breaking the fourth wall very briefly before slipping back into their film world. It somehow managed to deliver a complete life in a very short runtime, while still feeling leisurely and poetic.

Blew me away.

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