Air Doll

In this fanciful, Japanese film set in Tokyo, Hideo, a middle-aged waiter, has dinner every evening with a life-size, inflatable doll, Nazomi, with which he has sex.  Mysteriously,  one morning Nazomi assumes the appearance of a lovely woman – one with a heart, breath, and a voice  – and gets a job at a video store.  From there, she begins learning about the world, returning to Hideo at night.  At the store one day, she falls, tearing her arm and, still a doll, begins to deflate.  Another store employee, Junichi quickly repairs her arm with tape and re-inflates her, using his own breath. She begins to see Junici socially  and learns that having a heart is heartbreaking.  While Juichi seems to appreciate that Nazomi now has a heart, Hideo does not and wishes she would return to being her old, inanimate self. Eventually, Nazomi returns to the factory where she was made without a heart.  The man who made her cannot explain why she now has a heart or why humans have them.  It is these question which the film ultimately asks and to which Nazomi  seeks the answer.

Nazomi is naked a lot in this movie, but one never forgets that she is a doll and the movie can not be termed “erotic.”