Somewhere in Japan, business is winding down for the night, and café owner Kato (Kazunari Tosa) goes upstairs to his apartment to relax. But on his computer monitor he is still in the café, two minutes in the future. Convinced it’s a trick, Kato goes back down to the café and finds the second monitor, the one that can see into his apartment two minutes into the past. Then when Kato’s past self shows up in the monitor, Kato’s future self reenacts the conversation from the other side verbatim. Why? That’s one of the central questions driving Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes, director Junta Yamaguchi’s clever exploration of the Droste effect, shot primarily on iPhones and cleverly pieced together to look like a single take. The movie benefits greatly from its electric concept and high-energy cast, not to mention an almost casual and completely believable approach to fatalistic philosophy.

Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (2020)
Directed by Junta Yamaguchi
Written by Makoto Ueda
Produced by Takahiro Otsuki, Kazuchika Yoshida
Starring: Kazunari Tosa, Riko Fujitani, Gôta Ishida, Masashi Suwa, Yoshifumi Sakai, Haruki Nakagawa, Munenori Nagano, Takashi Sumita, Chikara Honda, Aki Asakura
Indiecan Entertainment, Not rated, Running time 70 minutes, Premiered June 5, 2020

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The above blurb first appeared in the pages of Boulder Weekly Vol. 29, No. 20, “Movies galore.”