VITAL (Japan, 2004)
Directed by: Shinya Tsukamoto
Starring: Tadanobu Asano, Nami Tsukamoto, Kiki

" Intense this time is not the noise, the machine-gun editing or the violence, but the beauty. With Vital, Shinya Tsukamoto has made an intensely beautiful film.."

- Tom Mes, Midnight Eye

For centuries science has talked about the mind/body split. We are not our bodies, says science and religion. We are our souls. Shinya Tsukamoto would like to take this opportunity to blow a big fat raspberry at that concept. Vital is a bonk on the head for religion, philosophy, and medicine. Where’s the soul, he asks? It’s in our bodies. You just have to dig deeper to find it.

Tadanobu Asano loses his memory in a car accident that kills his girlfriend. Adrift in a mismatched world that doesn’t quite add up, he decides to beat the tragedy blues by going back to medical school — at least he remembers he used to be enrolled there. The first class he signs up for is gross anatomy where each student gets a human cadaver to dissect. And, in a mix-up that is actually more common than you might think, he winds up with his class project being the dead body of his girlfriend. Where others might yak, and run away, Asano begins to lovingly carve her up and weigh her internal organs. Every fold of her brain, every foot of her intestine, every valve of her heart brings back a beautiful memory. And the more he dissects the more he remembers about their love. 

A fantastic voyage into the human body to discover what organ, exactly, causes us to fall in love, Vital is a ballsy, beautiful, sometimes frustrating romance that gives a new meaning to the phrase, “Open your heart.” Shinya Tsukamoto once again goes where no director has gone before, and crafted a movie that’s as beautiful as an early anatomical drawing. And the question he asks is a fair one: how can we appreciate true beauty if we don’t find our inner workings beautiful first?