[psycho d]

Bullet Ballet (1998). What I thought was going to be a Johnny To knockoff turned out to be a Japanese Jimmy Hendrix Experience in which the abject point of life is set into violent flashes of the silver screen and punctuated with industrial tunes. The emptiness of life seems an odd place for a character study, but that is just what this film accomplishes. By facing up to our blank and bleak innards, Bullet Ballet not only takes a philosophic look at the thinking man's eternal question, it shoves character and audience alike onto the roundabout of life and takes us for a dizzying spin in order for us to clear our heads, almost as if our perception of reality needs a savage jolt so that we might look at life with an empty canvas as fodder to concoct our assumptions.

Shinya Tsukamoto has a ubiquitous role here as writer and director and star of this frenetic flick, and he performs each role with aplomb. Across the board the acting was solid, with the other two leads revealing characters built upon foundations of internal confliction. Filmed in acute black and white, color seems to have no place in the difficult world created here. The camerawork was frenzied and even a tad experimental, so much so that Dramamine might be in order before shoving off (sorry, but temperance is not my strong point). Coupled with some spasmodic montages, all stitched together through the genius only born on that small island, Bullet Ballet turns out to be a violently brilliant ride with an end that is more bountiful than could be expected. Merci.
d