Page 210 - Nightmare Japan Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema
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New Terrors, Emerging Trends                            197

                              persistently blur assumed distinctions between the ‘human’ and the ‘non-
                              human’. However, it is our base corporeality, in all of its porous fragility,
                              which  remains,  for  Tsukamoto,  the  most  recurrent  site  of  horror.  The
                              reasons  for  this  include  not  only  the  body’s  propensity  for  undergoing
                              radical biological transformations, but also its locus as the ultimate target
                              for,  and  last  point  of  resistance  against,  the  circulation  of  disciplinary
                              power  in  many  late  capitalist  cultures,  including  Japan’s.  The  larger
                              implication of Tsukamoto’s  focus on the human  form, then, includes the
                              potential for viewing it as an apparatus for resisting oppressive ideologies
                              through an embracing of the processes of adaptation and change that have
                              always  comprised our  inexorable organicism. Thus, the  primary  concern
                              of Tsukamoto’s film is nothing less than the very ontology of fear. In this
                              sense,  Vital  and  Marebito  might  be  considered  companion  pieces.  In
                              foregrounding  human  physicality  through  an  almost  clinically
                              orchestrated  mise-en-scène,  Vital  dissects  –  or  at  least  purposefully
                              agitates  –  those  sickly  logics  most  fundamental,  or  vital,  to  our
                              comprehension  of  the  human  as  (and apart  from),  the  ‘other’. For  this
                              reason  alone,  Tsukamoto  Shinya’s  Vital  (like  Shimizu  Takashi’s
                              Marebito)  is  not  only  an  important  contemporary  Japanese  horror  film,
                              but an indispensable contribution to world cinema.


                                                        Conclusion

                              In  short,  as  the  excitement  generated  by  recent  works  of  contemporary
                              Japanese  horror  cinema  remains  high,  influencing  motion  pictures  and
                              other  popular  culture  productions  across  multiple  national  and
                              international  markets,  one  must  not  take  pronouncements  of  the  genre’s
                              impending demise too seriously. At the same time, filmmakers concerned
                              about  the  genre’s  immediate  viability  must  guard  against  redundancy,
                              both in terms of the iconography deployed to evoke fear in spectators, and
                              in terms of the film’s storylines; narrative reiterations without innovation
                              may not only decrease viewer interest, but jeopardise the chances of more
                              inventive  texts  reaching  receptive  audiences  eager  for  more  novel
                              approaches  to the  horror genre.  If  the  works  explored in  this  chapter are
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