Vital (2004)

Directed by Shinya Tsukamoto

Starring Tadanobu Asano, Nami Tsukamoto, Kazuyoshi Kushida

Film No4 in Tartan's Asia extreme tour 2005.

Hiroshi Takagi (Tadanobu Asano) wakes up in hospital after a car crash, his memory is gone but his parents take him home and hope for the best. Finding his old medical books he decides to enrol as a medical student, (his father is a doctor). During the training he has to do dissect a corpse, a young woman and suddenly memories come flooding back to him, but are they just memories?

As the dissection takes place Hiroshi starts behaving more and more strangely driving most of the other students away apart from a girl who obviously has a soft spot for him, she follows him around and literally throws herself at him but he's too self absorbed to take any notice. The flashbacks and visions get stronger and become more real to him than reality, meanwhile the dissection continues as every part of the body is cut away and examined for study purposes (the visual and aural effects for this procedure were outstanding). 

Sounds macabre, depressing or gross but provided you can let yourself flow with it, its quite beautiful. Hiroshi slips from the present to the past and often into a higher plane of consciousness! 

Tadanobu breezes through his role keeping his acting minimal but interesting, Kazuyoshi Kushida excels as the father of Hiroshis ex girlfriend. The directing and editing are superb (as Id expect) and Nami Tsukamoto (any relation?) is beautiful and I assume from her performance, a trained dancer. 

The film asks many questions such as: How do we define love? What is waiting for us when we die? What is reality? And as one of the doctors asks, Where is the soul? 

Provided you can just absorb it, you will find plenty to appreciate in this strangely poetic and fate driven love story from Tsukamoto. I know I've previously mentioned a similarity between the work of Tsukamoto and Cronenberg, one line in this film feels like a definite reference to Cronenberg's Crash!

I loved it but have no doubt that it will not appeal to a great many people which is a shame.

BBFC rated 15.

Cheers Trev.

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DVD update.

R2 Pal dvd available from Tartan Video.

Picture quality - very good
Sound options and quality - good range with very good DTS track

DVD extras include - 

Decent enough though fairly short making of.

An interesting interview with Tsukamoto going into the inspiration and his preparation for the film.

Good detailed info on the construction of the cadavers for the film, gruesome but very interesting.

Music promo.

A good hour + worth of extras as well as a commentary from Tom Mes from Midnight Eye.