The path to enlightenment is a booby-trap-laden maze in “Transcending Dimensions,” which Japanese cult director Toshiaki Toyoda says may be his last feature. It can certainly be taken as a sort of summational statement, rounding up recurrent prior themes and motifs, though in ways constituting more of an advanced course than a handy introduction to his work. Even loyal fans may take occasional issue with a feature that’s by turns absurdist, philosophical, violent, wayward, satirical and baffling.
Still, the unpredictability and aesthetic appeal of Toyoda’s vision has its usual bracing effect. A precise point may be anyone’s guess, but getting there is a playful cosmic trip that justifies the lofty ad slogan “Enter the gate to the universe.” However, woe betide anyone expecting something so simply categorized as “science fiction” — though that is also how it’s being sold.
The deceptively tranquil opening finds a monk meditating in a cave, then finding a mysterious conch shell in the pool beneath a waterfall. There’s no dialogue for almost 10 minutes, until Master Hanzo (Chihara Jr.) invokes “the power of the wolf” over a ritual fire before numerous bowed spectators. His wisdom is sought by many of them, but doesn’t come cheap: This smirking, dyed-blond guru routinely demands a chopped-off finger in return for his rather harsh insights. One skeptical spectator who leaves in disgust suffers an accident while driving away, presumably caused by the petulant master’s psychic powers.
Another observer is hitman Shinno (Ryuhei Matsuda). He’d visited the remote retreat at the behest of client Nonoka (Haruka Imou), tasked with finding out what happened to her boyfriend. Rosuke (Yosuke Kubozuka) disappeared while “training” with Hanzo, whom she calls “scum … intoxicated with the poisons of the world.” Complaining that the malevolent spiritual guide has driven her mad as well, she asks Shinno to kill him before taking a drastic means to exit this mortal plane herself.
Such relatively straightforward intrigue is just the jumping-off point for true narrative craziness that kicks off around the 40-minute mark, when opening credits belatedly arrive and we’re plunged into “2001”-like psychedelia. The levels of inner and outer reality subsequently traveled encompass space travel, a chamber of mirrors in diamond-like facets, a research facility for murky experimentation on human subjects and more, with the aforementioned conch shell blown repeatedly to summon a “light of truth.” But truth is a highly subjective thing here, shifting from one moment to the next, never fixed. Although concepts such as “soul,” “intuition” and “transcendence” get taken seriously by the characters, the film itself offers viewers not a pilgrimage but a wittily mindbending experience.
While its inventive audiovisual ideas are admittedly more modest in scale, “Dimensions” might be described as “The Holy Mountain” meets “The Matrix” — an onion-skinned quest for existential meaning that Toyoda’s deadpan humor renders something of a running prank. There are occasional boring stretches, along with confounding ones. But mostly, the effect is of idiosyncratic delight.
Those who’ve followed the director’s career will recognize elements reprised from prior efforts, particularly as this is intended as culminating a “Mt. Resurrection Wolf” series commenced with the short “Wolf’s Calling” in 2019. The elements of religious cultdom and criminality can be traced back even further in his filmography, to the likes of “I’m Flash!,” “Nine Souls” and “Monsters Club.” Toyoda is in the business of raising questions to provoke, not to resolve. Those unwilling to accept a considerable degree of confusion en route had best take a pass.
The actors all seem perfectly attuned to this slippery wavelength, while the design contributors — notably cinematographer Kenji Maki, art director Takashi Sasaki, costume designer Kazuhiro Sawataishi and visual effects chief Nobutaka Douki — do exemplary work. Sonic aspects are just as imaginatively accomplished, with particular soundtrack emphasis on taiko drumming troupe Kodo and genre-defying British jazz band Sons of Kemet.