“You oughta be in pictures,” sang Rudy Vallee in a 1934 song that became old Hollywood’s unofficial anthem, and the characters of Sion Sono’s shambolic, entertaining “Red Post on Escher Street” are still telling themselves a version of this lyric as they vie for roles in a present-day indie film. Most are young women with zero acting experience who nonetheless submit their audition applications via a red post box on the fictional Escher Street, with everything from bold confidence to sweaty trepidation.
Scripted by Sono, the film reflects the real-life methods of its director, who has long used auditions to cast his films and has centered many of them on female protagonists played by up-and-comers. Actresses such as Yuriko Yoshitaka (“Noriko’s Dinner Table”) and Hikari Mitsushima (“Love Exposure”) went on to stardom after featuring in a Sono film.
“Red Post on Escher Street” also has an anarchic spirit reminiscent of “Bad Film,” a movie about warring street gangs that Sono shot guerilla-style in 1995 but did not release until 2012. Filmed in eight days with students of an acting workshop Sono taught, the film has rough edges, especially in the harum-scarum ending, but is also informed by Sono’s three decades in the business.