When Tokyo florist Kudo Michi (Kumiko Asô) begins to worry about absent co-worker Taguchi (Kenji Mizuhashi), she goes to his apartment to see what is the matter. During the course of their conversation, Taguchi casually walks into an adjoining room and hangs himself. It becomes rapidly apparent, however, that this is only a single occurrence in a widening pattern of suicides throughout the world, caused by ghosts crossing over en masse to the world of the living.
Pulse is the Japanese progression of Dawn of the Dead, which declared that "when there is no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the Earth." Like its predecessor, Pulse envisions the afterlife as a dimension of finite space: overcrowded with the spirits of the dead. The core difference between them, however, is how the dead choose to interact with the mortal.
Romero's zombies wage a crusade against the living, seeking to either consume or convert anybody that they come across. They don't want to amicably co-exist with the living, but to conquer them one meal at a time. Kurosawa's ghosts, however, are the displaced dead: refugees from their own phantasmal realm (which one character describes as "eternal loneliness"). They are the "tired, [the] poor, / [the] huddled masses yearning to breathe free" in a new world filled with promise and possibility. Our world is their last, desperate hope for an afterlife.
The internet videos that are viewed throughout the film are windows into these ghosts' hellish afterlife. What we see is a dim and isolated room where every face is obscured by darkness. The words "HELP ME" are written repeatedly on all of the walls. As the video progresses, we see a figure enter the room and strangle its existing occupant: presumably a territorial dispute over what little space remains in this afterlife. And, given that ghosts are eternal beings, the implication is that they must endure these promethean tortures for all eternity. The unforeseen consequence of their intrusion on our world, however, is that any living being that they come in contact with is stricken with suicidal depression, further exacerbating the root issue of an overcrowded afterlife.
The ghosts' invasion of the living world is modeled within the film by a computer program in which a series of white dots move listlessly through a black screen. If the dots ever touch one another, both are destroyed. If any move too far away from one another, though, they are propelled closer together. This program doubles as an apt metaphor for all human interaction: we both fear isolation and crave human contact. Because of this, we propel ourselves toward one another with wild, often reckless, abandon, resulting in our own mutual self destruction.
The medium for this destruction is modern technology. Kurosawa presents it as a means of isolating, rather than connecting, people, which invariably results in despair. Instead of making meaningful, personal relationships, we seclude ourselves in our rooms (which are so very like those occupied by the invading dead) and surf the web. By the time that we venture forth beyond technology, it is far too late: we have become as desperate and self-destructive as the dead themselves.
Pulse is a movie that improves considerably upon retrospection: something which is more appreciated than enjoyed. While its production quality and scares are only so-so, its soberly meditative take on people's relationship with modern technology is thoughtful and depressively tragic. Becky and I both give the movie a respectful 6, the same that I have awarded to Flatliners, Insidious and The Evil Dead.
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