From watching Tsukamoto's other work and reading about him, I see the chimneys as representative of the chaos of living in an urban industrial modern day world. Metaphorically, urban living has numbed our protagonist to the point of loosing his memory and sense of self, this idea is also expressed in the many scenes of Asano standing in the sterile blue streets of concrete, dominated by the enormous stone cold buildings, unable to move, blank faced. Also when he sits in the corner of his room he has visions of dark water/oil, and when we enter his mind we see the chimneys again directly expressing the effect of urban industrial modern day living on our protagonist's mind.
When the film cuts to the fantasy scenes of him with his girlfriend, they are in a utopian space full of greenery and nature, the girl's dancing on the beach and the way it is filmed expresses great physicality and feeling in contrast to the numbing urban environment our protagonist finds himself in, where there is nothing but oppressive concrete which renders our protagonist unable to move or even give expression. He seeks feeling again through his exploration of the physical body of his dead girlfriend. But he actually finds it within himself in his thoughts of him and her together.
There is the beautiful scene near the end of the film where he looks up at the trees, this could have been a perfect and beautiful ending, but it is sacrificed in order for Tsukamoto to portray his message for inevitably we are brought back to the world we live in now - the cold concrete cremation room, completely absent of feeling. But the last words of the film introduce a new hope where the girl speaks of a great smell, of sensation and feeling.
It is a beautiful film, rigged with meaning, I think it's nearly perfect.
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