Carlos Reygadas's feature-film debut should do for Mexican existentialism what Love Liza and Leaving Las Vegas did for good old American gluttony. With very little dialogue, inexperienced actors, a lead character with no name, a title that is never quite explained and a very weird scene involving sex and a horse, Japón channels Werner Herzog, Abbas Kiarostami and Alejandro Jodorowsky.  You'll either be enraptured (it won a Golden Camera Special Mention at Cannes) or fast asleep (like me).

Japón is about a depressed, gimpy painter from Mexico City (Alejandro Ferretis) who decides to hike out into the dusty wilderness and kill himself.  Along the way, he meets, moves in with and eventually nails a much older mountain woman (Magdalena Flores) whose home is about to be destroyed because she never paid for the bricks four decades ago when the place was built.  The notes I took during the film remind me that one of the two looks like David Brenner, though I can't remember which one I meant.  Their sex scene is disturbing and unnecessary, as are the copious shots of horrible things happening to animals (it's all real, too).

Japón's finale is a seven-minute shot that might just dazzle anyone who is still awake to see it.  I don't think Japón is a bad film, since many people loved it for some reason.  But it's definitely not for everyone.

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