What is the main theme of this story? I interperated it as depicting the effects of losing someone and how it can distort your life, and almost consume your mind to the point where reality is unknown from dream/spiritual world. Also, I thought it tried to show the main charecters(i forget his name) search for closure and acceptance to his girlfriends death. As you can tell I couldn't really find a clear cut theme. helllppppp?
shareWith Shinya, the theme is always the same (he continually responds exactly the same things when asked the question in interviews): the city (specifically Tokyo), the human body, and the relation between the two.
He said after he did "a Snake of June" that he wanted to get away from the "city" theme so much (he did) and he thought the the farthest that he could go with the "body" theme would be investigating an autopsy.
I always get the impression that Shinya just takes a few recurrent elements and puts them at play together. The plot (or how they actually interact) is sort of secondary to the fact that they are interacting at all.
SIDENOTE:
a li'l fact, that I don't see anybody mentioned, is the fact that the tatoo on the woman's upper left arm (that he recognizes her by) is EXACTLY the same tatoo in the same location that the girl has in "Bullet Ballet".
Same girl?
The tat was a phoenix, which I thought was pretty cool.
shareThe phoenix (Bennu bird) represents the resurrection, immortality, and the life-after-death. [wp]
Could it be of any help the fact that maybe the relationship between the two protagonists becomes stronger and evolves after Ryôko's death? In a sense the symbiotic relationship between the two entities is a resurrection, a life (reborn) after-death, and the fact that the phoenix tattoo is prominent in the film could be an indicator of the metaphor.
Just wondering....
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hmm, i just watched this and loved it. I saw the main theme/s as reconnection
and the search for the soul. The protagonist is like a blank slate in the beginning, and over the course of the movie through literally digging into ryoko and communicating with her soul in the dream world he can begin to re-enter real life. I think he's searching for ryoko, but because her soul is gone he can't get to the truth of who she was through the autopsy scenes alone. In the final scene, you see ryoko's favourite memory, and its the only 'real' moment that she and the protagonist actually shared. So the protag has finally gained this truth and insight into his past with ryoko, and is also able to show the other girl in the real world some compassion when he tells her he is sorry. So, I'm thinking the theme is finding truth through exploration of the body and soul. Or is that ludicrous? Ace film tho.
Not ludicrous, but spot-on. I really enjoyed the analysis, although i guess I'd like to see somebody come up with an interpretation of how the sexual asphysxiation scenes come into play. But absolutely wonderful thoughts. I don't have anything partuclarly new to say here because it has been awhile since I've seen it, but from what i've read, I've agreed with everything.
By the way, they might have had the same tattoo in their respective movies, but Kirina Mano (the girl in Bullet Ballet) is not the same person as the actress who played Ryoko.