MovieChat Forums > Vital (2004) Discussion > What is the menaing of the first scene?

What is the menaing of the first scene?


I love Tsukamoto's works. What I have come to realise is that he often intentionally creates some scene as a metaphor of the main theme. In other words, what we see is only the surface of what the genius intended, and if we don't understand the metaphor behind we don't understand the masterpiece.

As it was with Kurosawa's first scene in Rashômon , I strongly believe that the whole meaning of Vital resides in the opening scene, with obsessive music and the four chimney that come to focus.

Although I've seen the film numerous times and I've discussed it with friends and colleagues, I haven't been able to identify a decent interpretation, merely a few speculations.

Could you help me out? What do you think the chimneys represent? They can't be there by chance, not with Tsukamoto.

---
http://www.federicopistono.org

reply

I've seen the movie again last night, and I've also wondered about it at first, but here's my guess.

The movie starts, and ends with the 4 chimneys, and all throughout it's filled with flashbacks. In my opinion, the whole movie is only one big flashback, leading to the last scene in the crematory. Just think about it. The students dissect 4 corpses, and they all get cremated at the end. And at this point, Hiroshi also fully regained his memory and is overwhelmed by the chaotic reality, metaphorically and literally (his girlfriend going up in smoke).

But it could well be that 4 chimneys have a different meaning in the japanese culture, so who knows...

reply

Wow.

" Look, there's two women fuc*ing a polar bear!" - Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas 1998

reply

If I remember correctly the accident which kills his girlfriend occurs within viewing distance of the smoke stacks.

reply

[deleted]

The chimney image is an architectural element familiar to local audiences of a Japanese crematorium facility & can be interpreted as closure, finality, transcendence, etc. Your mention of flashbacks is an astute one. The end cyclically brings the viewer back to the beginning.

reply

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.

reply

I think it was very directly implied at the end that they are crematory smoke stacks for the 4 cadavers they were dissecting.

reply