Bullet Ballet (1998)

Bullet Ballet (Shinya Tsukamoto, 1998)

Years after his breakthrough film Tetsuo, you can still smell Shinya Tsukamoto's famous fetish with metal --- this time, with the elusive gun (a rare commodity in Japan since owning one is restricted there). The allure of securing one replaces the love for the girlfriend who killed herself upon gaining access to the prohibited weapon. Cash is exchanged; research is voluminous; and marriage licenses are signed; all in order to secure a gun. Tsukamoto, ever the visualist, creates a montage wherein the gun is played with, quite seductively and lovingly, against the formidable light and creating shadows that somewhat remind you of rock and roll erotica.

The quest for a gun lands Goda (Tsukamoto), the corporate bum, in the middle of a gang war. Youth with pointless ambition are occupying the underbellies of Tokyo with their arsenal of home-made weapons (baseball bats covered with nails, lead tubes, etc.). His professional demeanor, an unsure yet desperate step towards the underground, turns him into the ideal target for their street side bullying. The lone princess of the gang Chisato (Kirina Mano) counters the metal fetish with her own set of irresistible pheromones. It's not exactly the formula for hot and steamy sexual encounters as we're talking about speed-addicted youngsters and Tsukamoto's weird sense of romanticism here. The most we get are artsy moments of ennui shared in quiet, sometimes violent but always dispassionate fashion.

Tsukamoto's black and white palette gives a metallic resonance to the hyper-urban affairs. When his camera is still, it almost evokes Japanese cinema of the 50's and 60's with Oshima's directionless youth and Imamura's angry citizens. Then, Tsukamoto convenes his trademark style of on screen mayhem; always accompanied by tight spaces representative of the iron tubes he has become so fond of. There are always extremes in Tsukamoto's filmmaking; the quiet moments are always disrupted by a sudden burst of violence. He takes it to the next level when he counters a three-way chase in the cramped alleyways of Tokyo with Chisato in an ecstatic moment of high-class fantasy in Goda's fully-furnished apartment; of taking calls and living the affluent life.

The metaphor Tsukamoto plays is one of class discontent. The gang-bangers wants to eke out a future from their unlikely lives yet are bound by the codes of honor their group has. They are disgusted by the corporate whores, yet realize the inevitability of them being whores themselves. It's a futile rebellion that will eventually die. Goda's dilemma is much more novel. His intention is to supplant his corporate lifestyle with the live-free and die-free motto of those street urchins he is trained to loathe (and in a way, adore). Initially, the match-up results in broken bones and bloodied faces but as temperatures ease and the distinctions are revealed as merely nominal, similarities pave a semblance of repressed fondness.

The title tricks you to expecting encounters of John Woo or Ringo Lam-caliber. Bullet Ballet is indeed kinetic, but not in a sense that violence is depicted in an operatic manner. One can probably assume that Tsukamoto's bullet ballet alludes to that elusive romanticism that floats and flickers on the volatile surface of Tsukamoto's art form which is all about steel, blood, and noise. Those silent moments of disconnected near-romantic gazes or dormant ambitions to escape the edgy life are the adagio to the otherwise rust-infested madness of Tsukamoto's urban nightmares.

Haze (2005)

Haze (Shinya Tsukamoto, 2005)

A man (Shinya Tsukamoto) wakes up in a dark and cramped space. Unable to recall any of the events that preceded his being trapped mysteriously, he starts to make up scenarios to explain his predicament: a war broke out and he has been taken prisoner, a rich man has trapped him as a disgusting fetish. Moments later, he gets dragged (or in my sense, falls) into a spike causing him to bleed profusely; for sure he is not dreaming. After forcing and squeezing himself through the narrow passageways of the torturous maze, he meets another survivor (Kaori Fujii) lying almost lifelessly amidst the visible remains of other human beings. After a desperate chat in which both try to determine what has just happened to them, they try to find their way out of the cruel maze.

Tsukamoto's 50-minute film (I am hesitant to label the film a short film since Tsukamoto's feature films are only ten to twenty minutes longer than this) is definitely an exercise for the director to test his mettle in visceral horror. He begins in absolute claustrophobia. His camera is focused on the sweaty and nervous face of the trapped man. The only sounds audible are those caused by him (tapping; heavy breathing; moans) or mysterious clanging noises from the unknown beyond. Voice overs dictate his psychological standing; a mixture of confusion, desperation, and hopelessness. Truly, the first twenty minutes of Haze is absolutely grating and is an absolute test of your limitations in film viewing. There's not much to see as the film (shot in digital video) is draped in darkness, but what's there to see is an absolute threat to your visual senses. The visual claustrophobia is enunciated by sound effects that further the cinematic torture (most probably enjoyed by those who savored films like Saw (James Wan, 2004) and Hostel (Eli Roth, 2005)).

It seems senseless at first and believe it or not, Haze does work best when it loses you in absolute confusion and induced paranoia. Tsukamoto's cinema is mostly visceral. Despite his being labeled as Japan's Cronenberg, his films doesn't quite reach an extent that surpasses his wild imagery. His later films (A Snake of June (2002), and Vital (2004)) try to encompass his visual energy with depth and narrative sensibility to a certain degree. Haze doesn't quite work when it tries to overcome its visceral side by trying to provide an explanation to the maddening insanity that is depicted. It seems that Tsukamoto is aiming for a metaphor but merely succeeds in compounding the film with conventionality it doesn't need.

Haze, at least after the first twenty minutes that was purely horror, with none of the fatty excesses of gratuitous narrative, goes downhill to art film pretentiousness. It's too bad because I thought Haze could've shown a thing or two how visceral horror films should be done, but instead of treading the road less traveled, makes a U-turn to needless explanation and narrative revelations. It's still worth watching, I suppose. It is after all merely fifty minutes long, and while it lasted, is a heart-pounding, eye-straining, and mind boggling labyrinthine "masturbatory" feat by Japanese auteur Shinya Tsukamoto.