What do you do when you want to make an art-house film and be considered an auteur throughout the filming community? But you are lacking some non-consequential elements like a script, a soundtrack, actors, and of course high on everybody’s list, money. So how do you bypass all these and make a film worthy of accolades at international film festivals around the world?

Step one is you cast yourself as the lead actor as did Masahiro Kobayashi at this year’s Tokyo International Film Festival in his film The Rebirth, and to ensure your vision is not skewered by anyone, you appoint yourself writer and also director just to be on the safe side. But you have to have supporting actors to create a story arc, so you do the next best thing and cast one seminally unknown female lead opposite you, Makiko Watanabe. Problem solved.

Then comes the script, this can either make or break a movie in Hollywood. No worries, you write a 10 minute dialogue that you use to bookend the movie and watch as I did as the audience squirmed in their seats, their stomachs grumbling, as the two lead actors and the peripheral actors immersed themselves in boring, repetitious, mundane tasks with no interaction whatsoever for about 130 minutes. The total running time was 140 minutes devoid of dialogue and a soundtrack mind you.

Now, don’t get me wrong I love art house, I could watch Vittori De Sica’s Umberto D. as the poor old man and his dog wander the streets searching for food, money, and a home to call their own over and over with their minimal dialogue. Knowing this, I was looking forward to this years TIFF’s Japanese Eyes section; however, no dialogue and no soundtrack at all, who you kidding? And to add insult to injury, you employ the same exact shots repeatedly with the only subtle hints being minor changes in the facial expressions of the actors, as story arc.

And what of the money? That’s an easy one. You go to a frozen and harsh environment in Northern, Japan (Hokkaido) as Masahiro opted to do and further minimize costs by narrowing your shooting schedule to about two weeks, ensuring about a $100,000. overall budget in the process.

What’s more, if you want to have some real fun with the audience, you give your film two completely different titles -- The Rebirth, when the literal translation is A Premonition of Love -- just to keep them guessing.

Half of me wanted to leave the film and find the director and give him a piece of my mind, but the other half wanted to stay and watch how this was going to end. As torn as I was, I had to admit that upon leaving the theater, my head was stuck on the film like a song that you hear in the morning just before leaving to work and you end up humming throughout the day. which was what they might have felt at the 60th Locarno International Film Festival where this movie took home the Golden Leopard, Youth Jury Prize, CICAE Prize and Daniel Schmid Prize. Go figure.