SciFi-Perle “Beyond The Infinite in Two Minutes”: Die Blu-Ray

Actually, “Beyond the Infinite in Two Minutes” is not a forgotten, but rather an overlooked SciFi pearl – because the Japanese low-budget film from 2020 is probably not even known to many fans of the genre.

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Pretty courageous to compare this cell phone filmed thought experiment with a million-dollar blockbuster like “Tenet”. What the author of the Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes mediabook is trying to do with such a David vs. Goliath comparison is to suggest that the purported one-take sci-fi flick would be better and more successful than Christopher Nolan’s heady forward-backward thriller. This is of course not the case. It can be doubted that the Japanese micro-production has taken more than 360 million US dollars. There is also neither large-scale action nor visually appealing scenes to admire, especially since the film only takes place in two or three rooms in the same building complex.

But Junta Yamaguchi’s 70-minute, minimalist comedy doesn’t need any of that. Only the two-minute time delay in a type of video telephony is explored here. You know that e.g. B. from Skype. If someone is sitting at the other end of the world with a bad internet connection, the communication can sometimes be delayed. In this case, however, the second monitor – a regular TV with an online connection and a camera – is only one floor below Kato’s (Kazunari Tosa) apartment, actually in his own café. The even more important difference is that the time delay goes two minutes into the future instead of into the past. So Kato calls himself from the café to find out more about the future leased line and to reveal that the guitar pick he was looking for can be found under the carpet. How does he know? He found out about it himself, exactly two minutes ago.

In the infinite loop

So Kato goes straight to the café and makes the same call again from the other side. Cause and effect are linked in an infinity loop. This experiment is then repeated two more times with different, newcomers from Kato’s nerdy circle of acquaintances, which, due to its repetitive character, quickly arouses the concern in the audience that things could go on like this for the whole film. But then comes the variation and you can sit back and relax, to be confronted with even more crazy ideas that deal with the expansion of the future view beyond the two minutes. And that is quite funny to look at, because apart from the apparently endless power cables of the computer and the TV as well as one or the other neglected paradox, the thought experiment is played out in all its consequences and used for clever strategies, e.g. B. used against two armed narrow-gauge crooks. The drama remains within manageable limits, rather a kind of Olsen gang or the “The Big Bang Theory” crowd hatch pranks that are not to be taken entirely seriously, without even suspecting that each of these actions is intended to erase the space-time continuum could lead.

At least in the physical area, the participants in the experiment are as fit as a fiddle. The “Droste effect” (named after a historic cocoa packaging) or the wormhole theory are quoted cheerfully in order to make the whole thing more believable. Some knowledge is also thrown into the balance in terms of pop culture and e.g. B. briefly considered whether they shouldn’t emulate “Back to the Future” and place sports bets? Or the anime/manga “Doraemon”, which is more well-known in Japanese realms, is used to explain the duplication of itself. At the end of the running time of the seemingly seamless film, the viewer even gets the urge to play around with the experiment, the recursion with self-reference. “Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes” may not be as spectacular as the grandiose “Tenet”, but it is a very likeable 70-minute “short film” with cult potential.

^{Text: Falko Theuner; Editor: Richard W. Schaber}

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