19. VIDEO STORE DAY: This is the big one. Watch something physically rented or bought from an actual video store. If you live in a place that is unfortunate enough not to have one of these archival treasures then watch a movie with a video store scene in it at least. #vivaphysicalmedia

Based on the manga Kuuki Ningyo by Yoshiie Gōda, Air Doll was directed and written by Hirokazu Kore-eda. It’s about Nozomi (Bae Doona, The Host), a sex doll that comes to life after being the possession of Hideo (Itsuji Itao) who treats her as if she were his wife, coming home each night to cook for her and bathe her before making love to her.

One day, she comes to life, dressing herself in her French maid costume and heading out into the world. She decides to work in a video store, where she falls in love with Junichi (Arata) after he discovers that she has cut herself and is deflating. Once Hideo learns that she has become real, he wants nothing to do with her. He prefers the lifelessness of a doll, as humans annoy him. This crushes her.

She tries to have the same relationship with Junichi, who wants to deflate and inflate her as a way of lovemaking. As he sleeps, she tries to do the same to him, but doesn’t understand that when he’s cut, he bleeds, and that she can’t fix the damage. He dies and she leaves him in the trash before deciding to end her life. As her body lies in the garbage, a young girl leaves a baby doll for her to hold.

There’s a great moment in this where Nozomi meets her creator (Joe Odagiri) who has a room full of his creations that have come back damaged. She asks what happens and he says he keeps them as long as he can before he must throw them away.

Perhaps I am somewhat relating to this film, as Junichi tries to teach her about life by the movies that they watch together at the video store. This film keeps nearly every relationship at a distance, much like the doll that Hideo keeps at home, waiting for him, the only person who listens to him because it responds exactly as he wants. The real world is superficial and remote, unlike the fantasy life we have made of movies.

I watched this movie while considering the fourth of Anton LaVey’s five point program for pentagonal revisionism:

Development and production of artificial human companions
The forbidden industry. An economic “godsend” which will allow everyone “power” over someone else. Polite, sophisticated, technologically feasible slavery. And the most profitable industry since T.V. and the computer.

Doesn’t the internet basically do that for so many now? Fantasies no longer have to remain in one’s head; girlfriend experience and POV videos, combined with real dolls and Fleshlights, allow so many to have the physical side of the relationship that their mental or emotional state can’t handle. The pleasure before the business, if the act of being a human being and going through love and loss can be simply boiled down to business.

I wish this was a tighter movie, but it has moments of sadness that are wonderful. Almost like being with a plastic toy; it gives you the emotions that can’t exist through film, like something its protagonists would watch while waiting on custimers.

You can watch this on Tubi.