VitalSometimes loss has a way of guiding us to find what we're looking for. Shinya Tsukamoto's Vital tells the story of Hiroshi Takagi (Tadanobu Asano), an amnesiac after a car accident, who discovers that he was a medical school drop-out. Driven by forces he cannot fully comprehend, he re-enrolls in medical school--excelling in all areas--and makes it to the human dissection portion of his education. And yet, as Takagi begins the visceral portion of his higher learning, his memory begins to return piece by piece, recalling his lover who died after the car accident...and the similarities between her and the cadaver.
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Superficially, Vital appears to exploit elements of a nigh mean-spirited premise, the macabre reunion between Takagi and his girlfriend, Ryoko Ooyama (Nami Tsukamoto), while also appearing to be exploitative in the suggestion that the film fosters some kind of necrophiliac-like "romance". But as is often the case in Shinya Tsukamoto's work, the plot is hardly representative of the cinematic experience as a whole. When we are observing Takagi, how is it that we can be sure that he doesn't remember Ryoko, that he is missing parts of his memory? How can we understand the grief and frustration that he feels short of simply being told, or through Asano's excellent subtext? Tsukamoto is a filmmaker who allows his movies to explore these themes in a metaphorical sense, with visuals that paint a picture, outside of a straightforward narrative structure. Many images in Vital--and other works by the filmmaker--have little if any direct correlation to the story...smoke stacks blurred and accompanied by a kind of manic-sounding jazz, dreamlike sequences with Takagi and Ryoko on the beach, as well as her interpretive dance routines are pulsing with energy and vibrancy, an ironic choice which conveys the confusion in Takagi's heart about how to cope with Ryoko and his own emotions. There is a ghost of a romance which Takagi allows himself to engage in with his fellow colleague, Ikumi (Kiki), an opportunistic student who proves to have difficulty with the grisly dissection process, having ascended in her academic career by seducing her professor and tailing Takagi for advancement. While she pursues Takagi, it becomes clear that she is forever going to be in the shadow of Ryoko. Though she tries to elicit erotic feeling from Takagi by indulging in a passion he and Ryoko shared for auto-erotic asphyxiation, her feelings for Takagi grow and choke her, while he only has eyes for his former lover.
The striking color palette Tsukamoto uses in Vital is subversive; moments in the real world are intentionally washed out or even submerged in a deep blue hue, recollections of Takagi--or perhaps his delusional fantasies about Ryoko--are bursting with bright light and color. The idea behind this play of luminescence and color is to emphasize that Takagi is having a difficult time reconnecting with reality in the wake of his accident, but also in the grief which overtakes him as revelations about Ryoko trickle in and he desperately tries to escape. There is a sense that after his accident, Takagi has felt he is guilty for Ryoko's fate--certainly Ryoko's father (Jun Kunimura) blames Takagi for this at first, though he begins to soften toward Takagi, eventually asking Takagi to come by and speak with his wife about Ryoko, thinking it would be good for her. Vital is a film which can be both hypnotic and difficult to watch. The jaundiced cadavers are a chilling special effect, giving a sense of cold realism to the film, a jarring juxtaposition considering the thoughts likely going through Takagi's head about Ryoko, the memories trying to make their way back to him again. Ryoko's dance numbers are full of energy, and are a welcome interposition to the otherwise cold and dour moments of bleak dissection, and create a broad contrast between life and death, a gulf Takagi finds he must swim constantly to come to terms with his grief. Takagi lives his life near campus in an ascetic, mildewed industrial apartment, barely ornamented, much like a mausoleum itself. Although Takagi is going through the motions in the wake of his recuperation from the accident, he does not seem to be truly alive yet. His room is eventually beset by vermin, old food lies out, as though he could rejoin his lover by pursuing a lifestyle of decay and rot himself. For Takagi, there is a fascination with death--even prior to his accident--when he and Ryoko used to employ strangulation with a belt as foreplay. There is a sense that both of them were unsatisfied in their lives, and sought death in their ennui; but at least in the dreams that come for Takagi in the aftermath, he believes that Ryoko has reconsidered her position, and she calls for him beyond the grave for him to go forward with life. It is through his reconnecting with Ryoko--in his dreams and in his academic pursuits--which bring him back to the land of the living.
Recommended for: Fans of an unnerving, atypical kind of romantic story, of a young man who finally gets to know the woman he loved closer than almost anyone can say about their significant other, in body and soul. A disarmingly beautiful movie for dealing with such grim subject matter.
The striking color palette Tsukamoto uses in Vital is subversive; moments in the real world are intentionally washed out or even submerged in a deep blue hue, recollections of Takagi--or perhaps his delusional fantasies about Ryoko--are bursting with bright light and color. The idea behind this play of luminescence and color is to emphasize that Takagi is having a difficult time reconnecting with reality in the wake of his accident, but also in the grief which overtakes him as revelations about Ryoko trickle in and he desperately tries to escape. There is a sense that after his accident, Takagi has felt he is guilty for Ryoko's fate--certainly Ryoko's father (Jun Kunimura) blames Takagi for this at first, though he begins to soften toward Takagi, eventually asking Takagi to come by and speak with his wife about Ryoko, thinking it would be good for her. Vital is a film which can be both hypnotic and difficult to watch. The jaundiced cadavers are a chilling special effect, giving a sense of cold realism to the film, a jarring juxtaposition considering the thoughts likely going through Takagi's head about Ryoko, the memories trying to make their way back to him again. Ryoko's dance numbers are full of energy, and are a welcome interposition to the otherwise cold and dour moments of bleak dissection, and create a broad contrast between life and death, a gulf Takagi finds he must swim constantly to come to terms with his grief. Takagi lives his life near campus in an ascetic, mildewed industrial apartment, barely ornamented, much like a mausoleum itself. Although Takagi is going through the motions in the wake of his recuperation from the accident, he does not seem to be truly alive yet. His room is eventually beset by vermin, old food lies out, as though he could rejoin his lover by pursuing a lifestyle of decay and rot himself. For Takagi, there is a fascination with death--even prior to his accident--when he and Ryoko used to employ strangulation with a belt as foreplay. There is a sense that both of them were unsatisfied in their lives, and sought death in their ennui; but at least in the dreams that come for Takagi in the aftermath, he believes that Ryoko has reconsidered her position, and she calls for him beyond the grave for him to go forward with life. It is through his reconnecting with Ryoko--in his dreams and in his academic pursuits--which bring him back to the land of the living.
Recommended for: Fans of an unnerving, atypical kind of romantic story, of a young man who finally gets to know the woman he loved closer than almost anyone can say about their significant other, in body and soul. A disarmingly beautiful movie for dealing with such grim subject matter.