Bullet Ballet

This bizarre, almost abstract bit of neo-noir from Japanese cyberpunk master Shinya Tsukamoto (best known for his Tetsuo pictures) turns down from the gritty, hyperactive editing of his earlier works to create a film that examines one man's desire to understand the power of violence and the effect it has had on his life. Advertising director Goda (played by Tsukamoto himself) has the course of his life forever altered when his girlfriend commits suicide with a Smith & Wesson pistol.

Obsessed with finding one of these pistols himself (possibly to follow in his girlfriend's footsteps), Goda begins cruising the underworld, coming into the shadowy orbit of a gang of thugs led by Tatsuya Nakamura. Among these characters, Goda finds a soulmate equally bent on self-destruction, played with icy, otherworldly beauty by former fashion model Kirina Mano. She tempts death with the same abandon that Goda puts into his quest for the pistol that haunts his every thought. For instance, in one scene, she leans back on a train platform to see just how far back she can go before the oncoming train pulls her off the platform and under its wheels.

Like any good noir, Bullet Ballet serves up a buffet of colorful, unsavory, fringe characters, ranging from scuzzy drug dealers to bands of young rumblers. This further illustrates just how far Goda has to travel to understand the pull of violence and its effect on the city where he has spent his entire life.

Also pulling duty as his own cinematographer (as well as editor and production designer), Tsukamoto creates a shimmering black-and-white look that (as pointed out in the by-now-standard feature commentary by Tom Mes that is featured on almost all Artsmagic releases) is meant to suggest the cold grey metal of a gun barrel, highlighted by a transfer that makes this by far the best-looking American DVD of a Tsukamoto film. This is miles ahead of Manga International's Tokyo Fist DVD (the designers of which seemed to go out of the way to find the muddiest print available), for example.

A lengthy interview with the auteur (when one holds this many key positions on a film, what other title could there be?) reveals that this project took longer than any of his other films to realize, due in part to the personal nature of the story (the character of Goda is based on an actual film director) and the lengthy nature of the shoot. Most Japanese pictures are shot in less than a month, while this shoot stretched out over several weeks. But this is a director who doesn't believe in rushing his art and, like fellow compulsive Stanley Kubrick, he even helps select what theatres the film will play in, as well as the design of publicity materials (some of which are included on this DVD).

A film that has to be watched several times in order to be fully grasped, Bullet Ballet is a violent, brutal, and beautiful headscratcher. -- Christopher Hyatt