Director Shinya Tsukamoto has taken on the human as machine in Tetsuo: The Iron Man, and the human as soft tissue in A Snake of June. In Vital, he chases – and captures – the ephemeral human spirit.

A ghost movie unlike any other, Vital follows Hiroshi (Tadanobu Asano), a once-promising medical student who lost most of his memory in the car wreck that took his girlfriend Ryôko’s (Nami Tsukamoto) life. At first listless and adrift, eventually Hiroshi finds himself drawn once more to the wonders of the human body and how they might be appreciated from the inside out as a physician. He enrolls in medical school again, where he meets a beautiful but troubled girl named Ikumi (Kiki), and encounters a cadaver in dissecting class whom he believes to be Ryôko.

Occasionally confusing with its flip-flops between now, then, and the spirit world (not to mention a few incongruous smokestacks), Vital is a brilliantly acted, well-directed, thoughtfully written, and visually gorgeous film. Unlike the frenetic rock-video, free-form feel of Tetsuo (the only of Tsukamoto’s previous works I’ve seen), Vital feels like a real movie with a beginning, middle, and end.

The dissection scenes are less gory than something you might see on an X-Files rerun, but they’re effective and cringe-inducing in their own subtle way. As Hiroshi, Ikumi, and a few other medical students delve into Ryôko’s flesh, the spirit visits her former boyfriend. Is she trying to say goodbye? Is she trying to make him go with her into the netherworld?

Every actor from the leads to the smallest bit parts are wholly believable. The direction of the film, while undeniably more Eastern than Western in its approach to motion and structure, is taut as can be expected while still maintaining a compelling emotional through-line. The music melds well, and the cinematography is rich and textured.

Vital is a smooth blend of beauty, love, horror, and despair. It’s an absorbing story that reveals a little more of a mystery as Ryôko’s body is also peeled back, layer by layer. Romantic and unsettling, Vital is well worth your time – but be warned, its imagery will haunt your mind for a long time to come.

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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson