Saturday, April 15, 2006

Vital


Another terrific film from Shinya Tsukamoto, the director of "Iron Man" and "Snake of June". The film construct is a single metaphor. The metaphor resonates with me like the polish movie "Blue".
You will recall in "Blue" the scene where the widow is swimming laps alone at night in silence..and she comes up for air and is assaulted by the symphonic music her dead husband wrote...the director captured a truth there. Odd things, even sometimes the blank headspace of a workout routine, can trigger overwhelming memories..
"Vital" follows the recovery of an amnesiac. While the main character, appropriately perhaps, is an empty shell, the film lives and breathes around him. One does not watch flowers bloom, but that is what this film does in the space of 2 hours.
This is a must see..but don't be fooled by the "Asia Extreme" packaging..this is not "Oldboy" pain nor even horror. Drama without conventional rules perhaps? I must have missed them passing out the rulebook, but a quick glance at what is playing in theatres is clear evidence that --on this side of the Pacific-- not only was a rulebook distributed, it is enforced.
Rent this DVD and see what "speak American" (or my other favorite = I watch movies, not read 'em)has kept from us.

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