The Invention of Dr. NakaMats

Yoshiro Nakamats is a legend in his own time—and his own mind. With 3,400 patents to his credit, from the floppy disk to bouncing shoes (much easier on your joints than running shoes) to the impossible-to-resist Love Spray, the commanding 80-year-old has earned the right to indulge every whim and peculiarity. He has photographed and analyzed every meal he’s eaten for the past 34 years, a productive obsession that’s led to his formulating a drink containing all the ingredients for optimum health. The Japanese brainstormer thinks a lot about mortality, like many octogenarians, but with his own odd angle: He expects to live to 144 and to double his list of patents by then. After all, the good doctor swims regularly and by his own admission does his best thinking at the bottom of the pool—with his underwater pen. Fascinating, forbearing and relentlessly proactive, Nakamats greeted director Kaspar Astrup Schröder at their first meeting with a 130-page production plan. Schröder’s collaboration with British graphic designer Rob Chiu (aka The Ronin) and U.S. composer Mark Mothersbaugh (of Devo) results in a humorous, quirky and visually striking cinematic portrait wholly worthy of its eccentric subject. Incidentally, Schröder and colleagues never met in person but collaborated via Skype and the Internet—a marriage of technology and creativity Dr. Nakamats, perhaps more than anyone, might appreciate. Arsy-Versy Slovak director Miroslav Remo concocts an inventive and touching portrait of his eccentric Uncle Lubos, an amateur chiroptologist (and would-be bat-man) and amateur filmmaker. (Miroslav Remo, Slovakia, 23 min). —Michael Fox