A timeless Daoist quote from the ancient Chinese scripture, the Zhuangzi, goes as follows: “I dreamed I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky; then I awoke. Now I wonder: Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?” The question has been contemplated time after time: What if our dreams are actually flitting fragments of reality? And what if the reality we experience in our waking hours is only an illusion?
This is the question that Kazuya Konkaku and ‘Perfect Blue' screenwriter Sadayaki Murai explore through ‘The Dimension Travelers.' Played by Chiharu Niiyama, highschool girl Midori is the film's disillusioned protagonist. Midori is simply trying to make sense of her life: She finds school lackluster, her friends boring and her future bleak and uncertain. All of the sudden, a fresh new face enters her world and changes everything up: Mayumi–a girl the same age as Midori–moves into the same condo complex and gets admitted to the same school. The two girls hit it off immediately, and so their friendship begins.
As Midori gets to know her new friend a bit better though, life instantly begins to feel a bit more… confusing. Mayumi explains her conviction that she is actually an alien from another dimension who has traveled to Midori's world because her own exploded. According to Mayumi, the presence of these ‘aliens' is a normal occurrence in a world like Midori's, and many familiar faces in Midori's own walking life might actually be a lot stranger than they first seemed. Can Mayumi be trusted? Is Midori an alien herself? And is the world as she knows it in danger from the threat of greater supernatural forces?
Throughout the film's nearly hour-and-a-half length, viewers are trying their best to discern reality from a dreamlike world; both feel very, very real. This surreal and winding plotline is complemented by strange directorial decisions from Kazuya Konkaku that further add to the sense of disillusionment, like hazy filters, long shots in strange locations, and the bizarre placement of music at what feels like the most random of occasions. This makes the viewing experience of ‘The Dimension Travelers' feel like solving a long and complicated puzzle, but it certainly does not end in the same place where it began: The film's final reveal will leave viewers both stunned and satisfied.
That said, the journey which takes place in ‘The Dimension Travelers' feels like a creation somewhere in-between the works of David Lynch and Shinya Tsukamoto; it is very surreal, and sinister at times when you might least be expecting it. It might not be a movie for all to enjoy, but watching it is a unique experience for those wanting to leave their comfort zones.
