Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes

Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (Droste no Hate de Bokura, 2020) is a Japanese sci-fi comedy by Junta Yamaguchi you can watch online on iFILM. Closing up his café, Kato spots himself on a screen — speaking from two minutes in the future.

The monitor in his flat shows whatever will happen in the café downstairs exactly two minutes from now. It starts as a gag, then becomes a temptation to peek a little further ahead. Kato and his friends rig a chain of screens, feeding hints to their past and future selves until the two-minute window starts calling the shots. The longer it runs, the harder it is to say who's steering whom.

The whole thing is staged to look like one unbroken take, and on a shoestring budget the trick lands cleanly. Seventy minutes of pure invention from the Japanese theater troupe Europe Kikaku. Great for anyone who likes clever science fiction with no effects budget and no self-importance. Stream Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (2020) online on iFILM.