Bullet Ballet

In one night Goda’s life is altered irreversibly when his partner of ten years commits suicide in his apartment. He has seen no signs of her impending death and is clearly overwhelmed by her demise. We see him staring ahead in a daze as the police interrogate him. Goda persists asking the same question throughout the film, a question that no one but the recently deceased Kiroko could possibly answer, why did she end her life?

Wandering through the subway, he recognizes a young girl leaning on the wall; her impish face and surly pout are devoid of sentiment. Chisato is the female member of a gang of degenerate punks who live each moment of their lives in a constant rebellion against society and it’s rules.

Goda asks Chisato if she remembers him, this is the girl he saved from falling into the path of a train; instead of expressing her gratitude she bit his hand, which still bears a deep scar. Goda remains puzzled and curious by his brief encounter with her, ignoring him; she now calls on her fellow gang members from a cell phone. Within seconds they rush towards Goda punching and kicking, stealing his wallet and ridiculing him. This confrontation with societies disaffected youth marks the beginning of a dangerous liaison.

Alone in his apartment Goda gazes blankly at the fractured windowpane, the mark lleft by Kiroko’s bullet. This reminder of the catastrophic events of her death haunts him yet he refuses to replace the glass. Instead he forces himself to relive the horror of that fateful night - his pain eventually deteriorating into a deep despondency, which begins a sinister obsession: to find a firearm, a Chief Special to be exact, the handgun Kiroko used on herself.

As a white collar professional with no ties to the criminal underworld he soon realises that attempting to purchase an illegal weapon is no easy task. Walking through the bustling streets of Tokyo in the evening he searches the crowds for a way to obtain his desire. One trader who agrees to an exchange cheats him, selling him a toy gun and stealing his money. After this he shifts his approach to browsing the worldwide Internet, newsgroups and chat rooms, where he comes across the necessary information he needs to actually manufacture his own weapon. Visiting a scrap yard he collects the metal parts.

At his office where he works as a commercial director he stares hypnotically at old video recordings presenting soldiers combating in a battleground, the firing of guns and blasts cram the monitor in front of him. The brutality escalates depicting powerful images of devastation including nuclear bombs; the pictures flash speedily on film emphasising the power and brutality of the imagery. The gun is portrayed as one diminutive component, which is the trigger for progressive and apoplectic bloodshed. His aching heart and mind has become totally preoccupied with visions of death and man made killing machines.

On the other side of town playing a dangerous game of ‘subway’ the punk’s watch breathlessly as Chisato stands on her tiptoes, her delicate arms outstretched, a wild bird taking flight. Her body begins to shake fiercely as the vibrations of the train move past her, her shoes almost leaving the ground. One slight movement and she will be dead on the tracks. This is how the disenchanted youth spend their time, robbing salary men, (the conformists) and living dangerously in the fast lane. Chisato courts death, she walks fearlessly into its path, waiting for the welcome blow or fall that will put an end to her life.

The gang walk to the nightclub owned by their leader Idao, a heroin addict. Goda spies them and runs into the club snatching Chisato in the toilets and dragging her outside. He threatens her with his home made gun; insisting she tell him where the other gang members are. Chisato covers his hand with hers firmly, she presses the gun to her body, inviting the bullet; her eyes are aflame and energized. Shocked Goda loses his confidence pulling away. He makes a futile attempt to shoot Gotsa, (the other prominent gang member) but his gun seems incapable of firing correctly.

Once home he finds a mysterious woman waiting for him she offers him a Chief Special gun in exchange for a marriage certificate, which he agrees to.

Finally holding in his hands the object of his fixation, Goda now steps into a dark place his mind losing its sanity as his grief becomes inconsolable. In the bathroom he thrusts the gun into his head, repeating Kiroko’s name. He heats a metal shard on the stove, burning his flesh. He sadistically punches his head with the butt of the gun. Goda is punishing himself, believing that he is to blame for Kiroko’s death. He has also lost his reason to live; Kiroko breathed life into his existence, his being. Now strangely his personality and his self-destructive behaviour seem to be merging with that of Chisato’s, both of them envision death as the only escape from a tormented life.

Out in the city late evening Idao’s gang are involved in a territorial street fight with a rival gang. The youths rush into each other brandishing baseball bats and knives, beating their opponents across the head and body, their feet moving to an invisible beat as they dodge and attack. A boy corners Chisato but she refuses to fight him, instead she holds out her arms waiting for the end. Goda joins the gang shooting at the opposition, helping them win and escape, he saves chisato. Afterwards Goda asks Gotsa to kill him with the his gun but Gotsa refuses, Goda pushes the gun into his mouth while Chisato watches, eyes wide looking for the first time at someone who represents a duplicate image of her own despair and suicidal tendencies.

Now the narrative shifts its focus to the young gang member, Gotsa. He has taken an office job in the city wearing a suit. When Idao hears about the position he mockingly congratulates him saying that he has to redeem his honour in the group by killing a derelict, or in fact killing any human being he wants to. Gotsa focuses his attention on a policeman but cannot find the courage to pull the trigger. Sweating and afraid of his own failure he sits exhausted in a gym where a talented boxer is training, his muscled body and fists energetically punching the training bag. Gotsa stares at his athletic physique, and comments that it must have taken years for the boxer to train to become what he is. Sweating and exhausted he lifts his gun and shoots the boxer killing him instantly. Gotsa has committed murder - he has taken the life of a person he was actually envious of, a man he himself would have liked to be. This murder will prove to be the end of the Idaho’s gang.

On the other side of town Chiatso tricks Goda and enters his apartment while he is out. She runs playfully with all the liveliness and purity of a child, rolling between the bed sheets, speaking into the telephone. This scene opens a new representation of the girl, a tender picture that expresses her fragility and youth. For some reason unknown to us she has lacked the love and social skills to live like other girls of her age. Underneath the brutal exterior is a desperate child and young female who has lost the will to live.

Now doomed by the boxer’s death, two of Idaho’s gang are murdered. The group have committed so many crimes that the identity of the shooter remains a mystery to them - it could be anyone. The gang are forced to wait for death, trapped in a building. Chiatso asks Goda for help; this is hard for Chiatso and we have the impression that she has never asked anyone for anything. Her bottom lip trembles in fear; her face is candid and brooding.

Goda and Chiatso sit on top of a skyscraper together gazing at the menacing black clouds that speed across the horizon. Chiatso confesses that she is petrified, not of dying but of surviving, she can see no future for herself she has nothing to live for. It is life that frightens Chiatso not death.

The shooter arrives, killing the leader, Idao, and two other members of the group, although Goda shoots the man he continues to beat Chiatso and Gotsa but spares their lives. Chiatso and Goda huddle together watching Gotsa cry and scream as he burns the bodies of the gang in an open fire. His pain could be interpreted in two ways, one the death of his friends, and secondly the end of a part of his life that can never be resurrected.

Chiatso and Goda stand and say their goodbyes, battered and bloody they stumble to the streets towards the sun, lifting their faces to feel its brightness and warmth. Their legs begin to pick up speed until the run arms outstretched embracing life for the first time in a long time, finally redeemed their bodies and mind’s are ready for an uncertain but welcome future.

In this film Tsukamoto ingeniously studies the youthful and violent world of gang of youths skirting the exterior of society. The film has a positive ending that forcefully depicts Tsukamoto’s message that there is no tragedy or desperate way of life that cannot be salvaged and transformed into a meaningful life.

The film has a very experimental feel as previously seen in Tetsuo it is also shot in 16mm, in stark glossy black and white. The story is disjointed, and while it complicatedly moves at random and does not fully articulate one particular idea or theme, it aptly represents the confusion and apprehension of the characters concerned.

Tsukmoto visually demonstrates the power and vigour of a reckless intolerant youth with his camera, the slow motion shots of fighting in the streets and the hand held camera all communicate the inner fury and passion these youngsters possess.

The line between sanity and insanity is thin, especially in the case of Goda. We quickly see his speedy decline into madness as he fails to come to terms with losing his partner. This is an ordinary man who ventures too far into the abyss of his own personal loss.

Redemption is one of the fundamental themes of the story; both Goda and Chisato undergo physical and psychological hardship before they are capable of building a new existence for themselves or feeling optimistic about their futures. The film clearly explores in the requirement for individuals to stand in the storm and taste its rage. This cathartic release is seen as a necessary prerequisite to cleansing the body and mind of pain.

Both Chisato and Goda have lost the will to live; this is consistent with Chisato’s fascination with death. She sees her own death as a joyful occurrence, one that will relieve the pain of her very existence. Although the fellow gang members indulge in frequent drug taking, Chisato pretends to take them. The group believe she risks her life all the time because she is disorientated after taking speed and other narcotics, when in fact she immerses herself in acts that could only lead to self-suicide with no chemical inducement at all, this is her natural state of being and it is wretched.

In one short flashback Goda’s deceased girlfriend speaks, she comments to Goda that people have children so that they have something to live for. Life is difficult; day-to-day life is very hard for all of the characters in the story. Men and women indulge in addictive drugs to avoid facing life’s complications. And many run untamed and disobediently through the city’s night streets, their frustrations and fears epitomised in the faces of the men and women who conform to society’s rules and needs. People need strong motivations and a will to live: to stay alive in this cold society.

The gang’s antagonism and dissatisfaction is aimed primarily at the suited men from the city, the men who have conformed. It is this very conventionality that the punks both fear and despise. Chisato pretends to offer these men sex – she is satisfied when they follow her into lairs where they are beaten up. One of the prominent members of the gang takes a day job, and becomes furiously out of control at night, pretending to be someone else and masking his differences in the day serves only to drive his personal shame and bitterness even deeper finally leading to murder.

All the gang members are afraid of becoming one of these men who spend their lives working from office to office until they die. It is fear itself that makes these reckless youths act the way they do. Conforming and becoming a good member of society is the worst kind of death they can envisage.

As in all of Tsukamoto’s films masculinity and the expectations of males is studied and commented on. Gotsa for instance views himself as a failing in his manhood when he becomes sick whilst trying to fire a gun. Chiatso the female gang member has many behaviour patterns that can be viewed as masculine.

There are very few moments of physical affection or tenderness, in one scene on an escalator we see an image of Goda and Chiatso resting their heads against each other perfectly still as the camera focuses on their stillness and the throngs of commuters rushing by them. This is the single scene of tenderness and it emphasises how out of touch both of them are from the rest of the people in the city. There is something distinct in there experiences, which separates them from the majority of the city.

Japanese society and culture is characterized as a community where the people are distant from each other. In fact it is this very detachment and aloofness that could be seen as the one of the direct causes for the problems in Japans disillusioned youth. Even when the characters are in groups they seem caught in a lonely void, numb and emotionless. They do not verbally communicate their needs desires and fears, only when faced with certain death does Chiatso disclose her uncertainties to Goda, beating him with her fists in both shame and dread at confiding her feelings to another human being.

Kiroko commits suicide with a gun, which is unusual for a female in society. The very fact that she chose this weapon to end her life is a cause of constant fascination for Goda. Studying old film depicting images of war and bloodshed, Goda views the progression of man made killing devices, beginning with the gun and later explosions and nuclear weapons, the gun is portrayed as powerful and destructive, capable of fuelling further terrible acts causing a spiral of devastation.

Finally at the end of the film the two central characters stagger tattered and decrepit towards the heat of a new dawn, their bodies radiate pleasure for the first time. One can only guess how they will fare in this new world but you are left feeling optimistic about their chances.

© 2004 Roseanna.Lawrence@Minadream.com