Vital

I normally watch films with no expectations or anticipation of what they have to offer but I wish I'd done some background reading on "Vital" before I settled down to view it. Expecting a horror film, I was left disappointed. Described as a thriller, I didn't find "Vital" particularly thrilling or attention grabbing.

While the film is beautifully shot, the movie relies on mood to keep the viewer engaged with what is unrolling on the screen. In the end, though, it's a somewhat confusing meditation on death and left me feeling more than a little frustrated.

6 out of 10. This is a stylish entry in Asian cinema but it lacks substance. I've no doubt it will delight some viewers but it will frustrate in equal measure.

as usual, tadanobu asano provides a subtly seizing performance as a medical student who returns to school from a car accident that killed his gf (an extremely attractive yet horrible dancer). the med student has lost some of his memory, but is searching for answers which arrives in the form of flashbacks. during an autopsy, he discovers that his cadaver is his former gf, and he mentally struggles to regain his composure during a surreal and trippy ride in his mind.

unlike some of the director's earlier works, this film does not spazz out with an inordinate amount of guitar fuzz and headache inducing images (but there are still some bizarre images of smokestacks integrated with migraine inducing punk rock for a few fleeting moments). instead, the film focus on the medical student's more subtle descent into confusion and then enlightenment as he struggles to regain his memory and make peace with himself.

in the midst of the med students flashbacks, another sexually bizarre med student (another extremely attractive woman) courts tadanobu.

if you're squeamish and wouldn't watch HBO's "autopsy" program, then i would not suggest this movie to you.

This movie was a strange experience, I started watching what I thought was a horror movie and ended up watching a tough "hard to swallow drama".

This movie should get, at least, 7 stars for originality! I never saw anything like it. The idea was genuine, the characters were creative and the set was very appropriate and perfectly matched every scene. It has a great photography, high quality images with nice shooting angles helping and transmitting the feelings and emotions connected with each character. From the technical point of view the only inferior element was the soundtrack, which didn't quite caught my ear.

However, the plot and its progression is a total different subject! I had a hard time understanding where the flashbacks ended and started and this movie has lots of them! Then, the main character's individuality was very peculiar, I mean, too peculiar, it just turned my head around and made it very hard to understand what was going on, what was he feeling and, thus, where the movie was going... Depressive thoughts and activities are splattered all over the movie, the main character has a hard time distinguishing reality, imagination, memories and dreams, and so do we...

From a subjective point of view, the movies theme was too depressing and it's just not my style. From an objective point of view, the plot could have been delivered in a more proper way.

In spite of all flaws, the movie did entertain me and I couldn't leave my sofa until I knew how this confusing and strange movie would end.

After the surrealness of the Tetsuo films and the blue filters and voyeurism of Snake of June, I was not sure where Tsukamoto would go with this film. I saw it as part of the London FIlm Festival and it was one of my favourite films.

The story is of a Hiroshi (Asano Tadanobu) suffering from amnesia (as a result of a car crash in which his girlfriend dies) slowly regaining his memory through performing an autopsy on her. It raises questions on the nature of the self and how mutable it is.

For example, Hiroshi was pressured in to becoming a medical student, but he rebelled and became a drifter. After the crash he loses his recent memory, but he is inexplicably drawn to study medicine. Is this the call of his nature or a way of healing? Once the trauma's of teenage years are stripped away and we return to the core of the self before social conditioning steps in, are we more innocent or closer to what we can become? All this may sound very deep, but this film is all about childhood/innocence and the self in my opinion.

Pretty different from the other three films mentioned above, but still has lots of blue/grey filters and an extremely acute sense of sound. Some of the autopsy scenes have some wonderful slurping noises and tension that really set me on edge.

It seems the majority of people who see Shinya Tsukamoto films are people who are fans of his to begin with. I am definitely a fan and have seen almost all his films - "Bullet Ballet", "A Snake of June", "Tokyo Fist", "Tetsuo 1&2". Tsukamoto is one of my favorite directors. In my opinion, he towers above most other film makers. His style is totally unconventional and he tends to make movies that can't easily be categorized, so fan-boy types tend to ignore him as overly "artsy", while lovers of more lush, slow-moving Japanese films tend to see him as overly frenetic and violent. Plot and linear narrative is typically incidental in favor of emotional catharsis (his films rarely wrap themselves up neatly, if at all - which can infuriate people). He tends to find a subject and fetishize it (guns in "Bullet Ballet", voyerism in "A Snake of June", metal and machinery in "Tetsuo", physical strength in "Tokyo Fist") rather than follow a standard "he did this, she did that" plot thread.

I would call "Vital" his warmest film to date. This is clearly a more toned down and relaxed Tsukamoto. Perhaps a sign of the director's move toward middle-age. There is very little of the manic hand-held camera work and thundering music from his earlier films. It's mostly static, beautifully framed images of non-moving people. Almost like paintings. Gone also is the furious video scramble editing technique that was taken to such wild extremes in "Bullet Ballet" and "Tetsuo".

The plot involves a young man recovering from amnesia after a car accident, who enters med school only to find the first cadaver he dissects is his old girlfriend (who died in the car crash). The memories start coming back to him, but the young med student (having no memory or reference point for the memories) instead begins to treat them as daydreams, and possible realities.

It sounds creepier than it actually is. The film is basically a love story, and quite a wistful one at that.

Highly recommended.