Having seen Tsukamoto's Tetsuo films, Bullet Ballet and Tokyo Fist, I was initially taken aback by how restrained the presentation of this film was. There is very little of the frantic camera-movement and head-pounding sound of these films. And yet, the same intensity is there, quietly boiling away.
The story revolves around Takagi, ex-medical student, who has woken from a coma. Though he remembers nothing, he is informed that his girlfriend died in the car crash. He walks around in a complete daze until happening upon some of his old textbooks. He becomes interested in medicine again and returns to med-school. Though still amnesiac, and visually far from 'firing on all cylinders', he does brilliantly in his studies, until confronted, during a dissection course, with the cadaver of his girlfriend Ryoko.
*** Detailed discussion of plot points follows ***
Before long, colourful visions of Ryoko and his time with her occur to him, often when he has blacked out in a game of strangulation with Kiki (a female student who is interested in him), a game which, it seems, he also used to play with Ryoko.
Pointedly, however, these vivid visions seem to bear little relevance to the real Ryoko who, rather than a vivacious dancer had, in her grieving father's words, lost the light from her eyes years before, sometime in high-school. As the dissections - and visions - continue, Takagi reconstructs (or imagines) his time with Ryoko.
For a film set largely in a dissection room, there is, however, very little actual gore. The director's intentions evidently lay elsewhere. Like his previous films, and also echoing one of Cronenberg's obsessions, the significance of flesh, of brute matter, is a question he returns to. Takagi's memories seem less than real (and they are filmed in such vibrant colour that they do seem too intense or too beautiful to be real). The only reality he can be sure of is the cadaver he is dissecting, piece by piece, and sketching in detail as a personal record.
Other elements in the plot, however, lead one to question this reality also. Takagi, his face shrouded in long hair, barely utters more than grunts and looks as if still in a trance, and yet he is doing brilliantly in medical school. In one scene where all his classmates are wearing face masks, he alone appears uncovered. Other details also separate him from his classmates. Is it merely because of his amnesia and his obsession with Ryoko, or has he changed in other ways as well? Incidentally, his colleague and would-be girlfriend Kiki, is also quite disturbed by the dissection. She seems to play a role counterpointing, or paralleling that of the dead Ryoko, and her exact significance is something that demands thinking upon. I'm not suggesting that these are 'clues' to a real reading of the film, only that they are useful symbols for evaluating the characters, their moods, actions and motives.
*** Detailed discussion of plot ended ***
The photography was as brilliant as usual, with some superlative outdoor scenes, as well as blue and red filters it other shots. Tsukamoto somehow manages to make images that are immensely watchable, that just draw one's attention to them.
As for the actors, Tadanobu Asano had relatively little to do besides brooding and wielding dissection tools. The female leads playing Kiki and Ryoko both did well, though they too were relatively untaxed in the acting department. As for the rest of the cast, the fathers of Ryoko and of Takagi stood out, humanising their roles even though of secondary importance. In fact, one might even suggest that the main actors were too close to the central enigma of the story to be fully developed as characters apart from it. The secondary roles, on the other hand, had more latitude to develop as people.
I'd recommend this film to anyone already interested in Tsukamoto's growing body of work, or even to those who may have been put off by his louder and frantic works, but might be open to this quieter brand of intensity. Part story of loss, part philosophical inquiry into the nature of the flesh and the significance of memory, this film holds one's attention throughout and is not easily forgotten.
The story revolves around Takagi, ex-medical student, who has woken from a coma. Though he remembers nothing, he is informed that his girlfriend died in the car crash. He walks around in a complete daze until happening upon some of his old textbooks. He becomes interested in medicine again and returns to med-school. Though still amnesiac, and visually far from 'firing on all cylinders', he does brilliantly in his studies, until confronted, during a dissection course, with the cadaver of his girlfriend Ryoko.
*** Detailed discussion of plot points follows ***
Before long, colourful visions of Ryoko and his time with her occur to him, often when he has blacked out in a game of strangulation with Kiki (a female student who is interested in him), a game which, it seems, he also used to play with Ryoko.
Pointedly, however, these vivid visions seem to bear little relevance to the real Ryoko who, rather than a vivacious dancer had, in her grieving father's words, lost the light from her eyes years before, sometime in high-school. As the dissections - and visions - continue, Takagi reconstructs (or imagines) his time with Ryoko.
For a film set largely in a dissection room, there is, however, very little actual gore. The director's intentions evidently lay elsewhere. Like his previous films, and also echoing one of Cronenberg's obsessions, the significance of flesh, of brute matter, is a question he returns to. Takagi's memories seem less than real (and they are filmed in such vibrant colour that they do seem too intense or too beautiful to be real). The only reality he can be sure of is the cadaver he is dissecting, piece by piece, and sketching in detail as a personal record.
Other elements in the plot, however, lead one to question this reality also. Takagi, his face shrouded in long hair, barely utters more than grunts and looks as if still in a trance, and yet he is doing brilliantly in medical school. In one scene where all his classmates are wearing face masks, he alone appears uncovered. Other details also separate him from his classmates. Is it merely because of his amnesia and his obsession with Ryoko, or has he changed in other ways as well? Incidentally, his colleague and would-be girlfriend Kiki, is also quite disturbed by the dissection. She seems to play a role counterpointing, or paralleling that of the dead Ryoko, and her exact significance is something that demands thinking upon. I'm not suggesting that these are 'clues' to a real reading of the film, only that they are useful symbols for evaluating the characters, their moods, actions and motives.
*** Detailed discussion of plot ended ***
The photography was as brilliant as usual, with some superlative outdoor scenes, as well as blue and red filters it other shots. Tsukamoto somehow manages to make images that are immensely watchable, that just draw one's attention to them.
As for the actors, Tadanobu Asano had relatively little to do besides brooding and wielding dissection tools. The female leads playing Kiki and Ryoko both did well, though they too were relatively untaxed in the acting department. As for the rest of the cast, the fathers of Ryoko and of Takagi stood out, humanising their roles even though of secondary importance. In fact, one might even suggest that the main actors were too close to the central enigma of the story to be fully developed as characters apart from it. The secondary roles, on the other hand, had more latitude to develop as people.
I'd recommend this film to anyone already interested in Tsukamoto's growing body of work, or even to those who may have been put off by his louder and frantic works, but might be open to this quieter brand of intensity. Part story of loss, part philosophical inquiry into the nature of the flesh and the significance of memory, this film holds one's attention throughout and is not easily forgotten.