Vital (2004) Signs of life in a tale of death and decomposition (Review)

There’s something thrilling about a director zigging when you expect them to zag. The best in the biz operate under a distinct style that can be modulated to suit different stories; whatever they’re saying, you can always tell it’s them saying it. Japanese punk auteur Shin’ya Tsukamoto is one such voice, operating at the fringes of good taste with an edgy style so sharp and rank it’ll give you tetanus if you get too close. Anyone wrestling with his films should always be prepared to come out a little scarred; the bodyblows of Tokyo Fist hold their own heavyweight brutality, while his debut feature Tetsuo: the Iron Man drilled its way into the hollow end of the 80s (and the minds of its underground audiences) and carved out its own infamous chapter in cult cinema history. It may come as a surprise, then, that his tales of fractured realities and bodily annihilation can hold some significant pathos, perhaps none more disarming than an undervalued work in the centre of his career, Vital, a slippery and unpredictable descent into the painful annals of grief, now distributed in a brand-new limited edition Blu-ray by Third Window Films.

Japanese megastar (and recent Shōgun Emmy nominee) Tadanobu Asano is Hiroshi, a car crash victim whose resulting amnesia has reset his existence. Picking up medical textbooks from his previous life, he re-enters medical school and reacquaints himself with all things fleshy and gooey about the human form. His dissection class holds for him a cruel cosmic irony; the body he and a small group of classmates may be someone formerly close to his heart, and a thorough, fraught examination of a lifetime is undergone, all through the lens of sudden death in slow-motion.

The set-up is classic Tsukamoto. Hiroshi joins a rogue’s gallery of the auteur’s leads as a quiet man ready to explode (or transform), isolating himself in an obsessive pursuit centered on a woman. We’ve seen him explore that in Tetsuo, A Snake of June, even Bullet Ballet, but he has rarely scratched this particular itch like he does in Vital. The concept reeks of danger and transgression, and his delivery maintains the tactile, inexplicable nature of his best work. Yet there is an emotional throughline here unlike anything else, taking time to stop and smell the flowers as Hiroshi’s memory comes back to him piece by piece. Some may be disappointed that the film stops short of his trademark pitiless despair, but there’s a significant maturity and beauty to Vital that sees him maintain his experimental edge and also branch out to new empathetic territory. If the last scene’s measured nuance doesn’t break your heart, you might want to donate it to medical science to make sure it’s not made of stone.

Carrying the weight of the film with steely strength is the ever-reliable Tadanobu Asano, yet there is tremendous support from all points. It’s always a pleasure to see Jun Kunimura (best known as The Wailing’s horrifying villain), and he turns in a brilliant role here as a grieving father scrambling for someone to blame, often resembling an erupting volcano against Asano’s unmelting block of ice. And while Tsukamoto’s script might never figure out its women beyond their perception as unreadable ciphers, its two central female characters are its most fascinating; Kiki’s Ikumi is a disturbing mirror image of Hiroshi’s previous life he can never fully recapture, and Nami Tsukamoto’s Ryôko is a tremendous Eurydice to Asano’s Orpheus, lending her incredible physicality as a ballet dancer to a sequence of interpretive dance that brings out the beauty and horror of the story out in graceful harmony. It’s a rare film where everyone impresses, and an even rarer one where Shin’ya doesn’t appear himself!

Being thrown for a loop by a filmmaker as distinctive as Tsukamoto is a real pleasure, especially when the story is as heartfelt as this. In an era where horror and trauma go hand-in-hand down every avenue, it’s refreshing that Tsukamoto’s own blend proves to be as heady and uncompromising as his most indelible work. Although perceived as relatively minor and unassuming in his filmography, Vital is a gem worth sorting through the glorious junkyard of Tsukamoto’s career for, and it may just add something to your view of the man you never thought you’d think.

Simon’s Archive – Vital (2004)