Maru

The Japanese word maru could mean 'zero' or anything spherical - or it could connote the Japanese flag, the Hinomaru. Suzuki Yohei's brilliant mind-fuck of a film invokes all those meanings and more.
Something very strange happens in the suburban home of the Suzuki family one morning. Jobless son Tetsuo is canoodling in bed with his girlfriend Yuriko when dad unexpectedly returns home ... to confess that he was fired a month ago. That's when a mysterious round object appears in the bedroom, stopping time and scrambling the brains of everyone who sees it. The cops are clueless, so a reporter from the local paper investigates. A sci-fi mystery spiked with references to Samuel Beckett's novels, this comédie noire does things no Japanese film has done since Oshima's Death By Hanging. (International Film Festival Rotterdam)