Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes Review: This Is Clever, Genuine Storytelling

From The Girl Who Leapt Through Time to Summer Time Machine Blues, Japanese time travel stories are well-known around the world. There are so many of them — and most of them are just so fascinating — that it is difficult to keep track. For instance, just last year, we had the release of the surprise hit A Samurai in Time (dir. Yasuda Jun’ichi), a small indie production that ended up a massive success with critics and audiences alike. But, going back a couple more years, we have another low-budget, seemingly unfussy film that surprised most people who were lucky enough to come across it: Yamaguchi Junta’s Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (ドロステのはてで僕ら).

Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes is a 71-minute adventure that follows café owner Kato (Kazunari Tosa) as he discovers that the TV in his coffee shop has somehow been connected to the computer in his bedroom and can now broadcast a live stream from two minutes in the future. But this blip in the time continuum is too short to be truly life-changing, so Kato sees himself surrounded by friends and colleagues with crazy ideas who decide to put his “time TV” and his computer together, creating a Droste effect.

Running short on time? No problem! Why don’t you pin our summary at the bottom and come back later for the complete review?

Beyond the Nagamawashi Effect

Written by Ueda Makoto and with a budget of a mere 3 million yen (around $20,000), Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes marks Yamaguchi’s very first feature. Its odd premise becomes weirdly charming through Ueda’s storytelling and Yamaguchi’s lenses, which energetically bring us into a world that is, at the same time, senseless and logical. This is a story that doesn’t try to explain itself with crazy science fiction theories or propose grandiose storylines. At its core, this is a straightforward story of a young man who lacks the confidence to make the decisions that would truly make him happy. As he faces this bizarre journey, will he continue to let time govern his life or will he start to make his own choices?

Visually, Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes conveys the fact that Kato allows himself to be dragged through time and space by delivering a one-shot feature. The film belongs to the “nagamawashi” movement in Japanese indie filmmaking. Nagamawashi (長回し) means “long take” or “continuous shot”, a technique that has been applied to several low-budget Japanese features in the past decade or so (a.k.a. “the One Cut of the Dead effect”). That doesn’t mean that the film is composed of a single 71-minute take — but it’s carefully shot and edited to look like it was.

This meticulousness and care shine bright as Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes‘s greatest qualities, an extremely well-executed film that manages to realise much within its limited means. Its flaws become background noise in the wondrous environment it creates, precisely filmed to respect the two-minute rule of its universe (yes, seriously. You can time it).

With its nagamawashi effect, we’re dragged through time and space alongside Kato and we seem stuck in this reality without any chance of escape. The narrative that unfolds is plot-driven, so we’re presented with a scenario, the characters test and establish the rules of this new environment and we see the consequences of their actions. Necessary exposition is completed as quickly as possible, giving time to our characters to play around with their new reality.

Fate or Free Will: Challenging Our Anxiety About the Future

Grounded in our mundanity, the characters in Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes use their newfound knowledge of the near future to make a quick buck, get lucky with gashapon (capsule toy machines), or gather the courage to ask their neighbour out. There’s no such thing as saving the world or changing history — because their universe is established with low-stakes, ordinary conflicts that reflect a wider idea.

Superficially, this is just a narratively and visually quirky film that offers a lot of entertainment and a few honest laughs. However, at its heart, Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes is a tale about free will and our fear of the future. We often let ourselves be controlled by an “imagined tomorrow” — we obsess over a future that might not even materialise, which affects our ability to make decisions right now. Are we really exerting our free will if we chain ourselves to this fear of what might or might not happen tomorrow?

The crazy (often hilarious) adventure that Kato is forced to embark on might be plot-driven but it leads to a very compelling emotional and personal conclusion to our protagonist. Fate is designed by every single one of our actions and these decisions should be made when we’re fully present, fully aware of our current selves. Once Kato realises that he’s let the future control him (quite literally), he chooses to break this “vicious cycle” and allows himself to take his next step as the person he is right now — with his current needs, desires, and means.

Besides its visual choices, the narrative is structured to illustrate this vicious cycle that Kato and his friends find themselves in. The film itself seems to establish itself as a self-fulfilling prophecy. We follow these people as they repeat the same actions over and over again: first, they “watch” their future over the live stream and then, proceed to make it come true. The scenario is presented as comedy, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are stuck in a repetitive loop that seems endless.

As we know what’s coming next, the dramatic question of the film breaks away from convention. We often ask ourselves what our characters are going to do next, but not here. Here, we know the future. And so, Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes transforms into a film that doesn’t allow its audience to wonder what is going to happen — but whether these characters will allow the future to follow a predestined path.

Will they be confident enough in their present skin to create the future they want — and not the one they bet on?

Should You Watch Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes?

Thematically, Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes toys with time, volition, and fate, while narratively, it toys with storytelling techniques and audience expectations. Clever yet subtle, Yamaguchi’s debut feature is full of enthusiasm and sincerity. It dares to be what it wants to be — and not what it’s supposed to be.

The story is anything but complex, the cinematography and production design are fairly simple, and yet, it’s extremely charming and imaginative. It is unique, dynamic, and genuine, reminding us that good stories don’t require amazing visual effects or massive budgets. Whether you can see two minutes or a decade into the future of cinema, I think Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes proves that great filmmaking only requires a good dose of creativity, commitment to your story, and a group of dedicated people willing to make it work — right now, regardless of what might come tomorrow.

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