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No One's Ark emerged from a group of like-minded graduates of the Osaka University of Arts. Collaborating on one another's films, this mini-new wave of directors, writers, cinematographers, actors, and musicians began producing films in the late '90s that created a buzz at film festivals and eventually began receiving theatrical distribution. The rapport among the group can be felt in this movie, which was directed by Nobuhiro Yamashita and written and shot by Kosuke Mukai. With its bone-dry humor, deadpan performances, lingering landscape shots, and an eccentric musical score by Aka Inu, No One's Ark is reminiscent of the work of Jim Jarmusch or Aki Kaurismäki without leaning too heavily on their influence. The film has an engagingly loose, almost improvised feeling. It's most effective at pointing out the stubborn, unreasonable idealism of its characters. Daisuke and Hisako have been left behind by Japan's economic boom (and bust), but they still ape the language of upbeat marketing executives. An almost painfully long scene toward the end when they make a last-ditch effort to sell their product from a table in front of a small town grocery store perfectly mixes the humor and pathos of their situation. Director Yamashita rightly chooses not to linger on the depressing nature of their tale, but instead focuses on its absurdity. In the hopelessly insular world of Daisuke's hometown, his friend Ozaki wields his position as assistant manager of a grocery store in lordly fashion, but has to pay for sex, even if it's with his old classmate Madoka. Daisuke, meanwhile, can only resolve his teenage obsession with her by doing the same thing. An amusing coda with a delightful twist seals the fate of the characters, and ends the film on a perfect note.