Japanese master filmmaker Takeshi Kitano (sometimes known as "Beat" Takeshi) is heralded as his country’s premiere artist. His films¾ often written, directed, and edited, as well as starring himself—argue an auteurism uncommon in these times of corporate filmmaking.

Always exploring new avenues of expression, Kitano’s last film, "The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi" featured the phenomenon of a sightless warrior and ended with a "42^nd Street" style musical number. "Dolls" bookends a trio of sad love stories with the 300 year-old Japanese art of Bunraku puppetry—a tradition whose stories are steeped in the tragedies of romantic love. These expertly chiseled puppet dolls are operated by three men, accompanied by music and narration. Live action and puppetry intermingle throughout the film. Oddly intriguing, "Dolls" is another example of Kitano’s amazing versatility.

The stories are threaded by a common theme of sacrifices made in the name of love. A young man breaks up with his sweetheart under parental pressure to marry into a higher social class. When his brokenhearted ex-girlfriend recedes from reality and becomes a mental basket-case, the young man abandons his bride at the altar, ties himself to the deranged woman and they proceed to wander the countryside in a hypnotic trance.

Another couple meets everyday on a park bench for a romantic lunch. Fate steps in and the young man—torn between opportunity and domesticity¾ gives up this rendezvous to become the mob’s bigwig. Eventually he grows old with ill health and comes to regret his lost love. When he visits the same park and bench, he finds his hopeful, still-waiting girlfriend—an elderly woman now—saving the bench for her friend, lunch in hand. Not recognizing him, she converses with him and there is the anticipation that he just might reignite this old flame. Ironically, he dies before there is any resolution.

In the third saga, a rock star fan blinds himself to get closer to his idol after she is facially disfigured in an accident. Creepy in his obsession with this young girl, his final fate seems a fitting end to his tunnel-vision life.

While "Dolls" is a visually stunning film, with kudos to cinematographer Katsumi Yanagishima, it is difficult to feel any emotional involvement with these somewhat bizarre characters. The changing seasons are photographed with a breathless beauty but it is hard to find logic in the "bound beggars" who tramp through the fields with empty eyes. Clearly their role is heavily symbolic but the weight of that and the inordinate amount of screen time devoted to their endless wandering took away from the film for me and acted as a sedative for many in my audience.

I longed for a fuller exploration of the mob boss and his park bench girlfriend, or a fuller understanding of the weirdo rock star fan who would pierce his eyes out of adoration for some Britney Spears look-alike. These characters deserved a few more onscreen minutes.