Film Analysis the Last Kiss Never Before

¶ … Film Analysis

The Last Kiss

Never before has Takashi Kusama reached the perverted depths of sadism as he has through 2003's The Last Kiss. The Last Kiss is based on American Gothic writer Edgar Allan Poe's short story "Ligeia" in which an unnamed narrator is driven to madness by the love of his beloved and ultimately believes that he has the power to will her back into his life. Kusama has taken a step in the right direction by moving away from The Grudge-esque films that have been popping up in Japanese and Korean horror cinema. Through his unique approach to Poe's story, Kusama is able to present the narrative from a new and haunting perspective while maintaining the supernatural ambience that often proliferates Japanese horror cinema.

In The Last Kiss, Kakihara, the film's protagonist, has been slowly driven mad by grief and drug addiction. It is quickly revealed that Kakihara was at one time madly in love with Chiaki, a mysterious, vampire-like woman -- almost appearing to be the embodiment of death itself -- with whom Kakihara dreams of spending the rest of his life with. Chiaki is an extremely intelligent woman and appears to create balance in Kakihara's life, a balance that he most desperately needs. Kakihara and Chiaki appear to lead an idyllic life until one day when Chiaki is tragically and gruesomely killed on her way to meet up with Kakihara. It is during this time that Kakihara turns to drugs in an attempt to help him cope with the loss of his beloved Chiaki. In Kakihara's drug fueled state, he meets and marries Asami, a girl that is the complete opposite of Chiaki and with whom Kakihara feels nothing for emotionally. Kakihara realizes too late that marrying Asami is a major mistake and in attempt to get his life back together tries to curb his drug addiction. It is during his withdrawal phase that Kakihara begins to experience horrific hallucinations, some of which he welcomes because the violence that he imagines is directed at Asami, whom he has grown to despise. It is also during this time that Asami becomes gravely ill, and though Kakihara imagines some malevolent spirit has played a part in Asami's condition, he is both relieved and grief-stricken when Asami dies. While he cannot bear to bring himself to part from the body of his dead wife, Kakihara falls deeper into madness, imagining that the corpse has come back to life on several occasions until Asami actually transforms into Chiaki and the screen goes black leaving the audience wondering whether or not Chiaki came back for Kakihara or if he was driven to complete and utter madness by his memories of Chiaki and his guilt over Asami's death (Poe).

The mise-en-scene of The Last Kiss helps to heighten the suspense and agony that Kakihara is experiencing. There are two prominent settings in which the narrative takes place; the first is the city of Tokyo, which is brilliantly lit by countless neon signs, advertisements, and various other city lights; the second setting is in Kakihara's home, which is rarely lit and has an overall gloomy and stark appearance. Kakihara's home is also dominated by a blue tint that helps to highlight the supernatural phenomena and hallucinations that Kakihara experiences. Additionally, the brilliantly lit cityscape of Tokyo's downtown, in normal and distorted views, helps to highlight Kakihara's psychological deterioration and the euphoria that he perceived while under the influence of drugs.

Sound also plays a major role in the film and helps to establish and heighten the mood of the film. It is interesting how Kusama uses sound sparingly in the film and relies on silence to demonstrate that Kakihara cannot believe what he hears or sees. Moreover, Kusama's use of live sound makes it so that the audience is in the moment with Kakihara. Music is used only when Kakihara is looking back at the happy times that he had with Chiaki and many times, the music is abruptly interrupted by silence as the narrative jumps to the present. Silence is also used to demonstrate the disconnect that Kakihara has from his wife, Asami, and highlights the fact that the two have nothing in common and rarely talk to each other. It is quite evident through their interactions that they realize that the marriage was a mistake; this is further emphasized by rarely showing Kakihara and Asami within the same room, which leads the audience to assume that the two lead very different lives and that there is little, if any, intersecting interests among the two.

The Last Kiss manages to stand out among the many Japanese horror films released during this time because it not only deals with the psychological impact of grief and how it is further heightened by drug use, but also because it incorporates supernatural phenomena and the malevolent spirits that are predominant in Japanese horror films like the Ju-On series and Ringu, which were subsequently remade in America in 2004 and 2002, respectively.