Original subtitles

BICYCLE

Hey, how far are you going?

Want a lift home?

Could you kidnap someone?

Who?

Me.

Why?

I don't want to go home.

Why not run away?

I need money.

Then work.

But I'm not old enough.

So you've just met a total stranger...

...and you're trying to get them to kidnap you?

I thought it would be alright if there wasn't any trouble.

Is your family rich?

Not really.

You kidnap me then.

- Your family's rich? - Yeah.

We can split the ransom 50-50.

Fine.

Let's go up on the Metropolitan Government Building or Tokyo Tower.

Why?

To call in the demand.

Don't you think doing it from a high place is best?

I don't.

Then...

...a river! Let's go someplace near a river.

A river?

I want to see a river.

I can't stop panicking.

What do you mean?

Well...

Are you going to have the baby?

- A baby's a lot of trouble, isn't it? - That doesn't mean you should have an abortion.

I wonder if it's really alright...

I just don't know.

I have AIDS.

- You're kidding me! - It's true. I was surprised myself.

So I'll never be able to have the same problem as you.

But you're in good spirits.

There was no point in worrying. I know I'll get sick eventually.

Have you told anyone?

I can't do it.

So I'm the first.

Have you told anyone about your pregnancy?

Not yet.

But we could each tell a random passerby.

That's just the way it is.

I wonder...

Why don't we go to another river?

I just felt like I turned ten years old.

Huh?

You don't have similar feelings?

What?

A feeling of becoming younger or older...

When I wake up, I'm my true age of 22.

But when I'm trying to keep my legs planted on a crowded train

I feel like I'm in my thirties.

And...

When I'm talking to someone younger than me

it feels kind of like I'm a women in my forties.

And...

When I'm acting like a spoiled kid

I become a seventeen year old in my heart.

The trains at night are the worst.

Everyone's tired and on their way home from work, right?

Their influence makes my heart grow older, older, and older.

To what age?

To that of an eighty year old granny.

Since I'm able to feel younger or older,

I'm planning on feeling like a senile old person when I die.

I wonder if the baby in my belly can have feelings like that...

It's the nostalgia of the genes, isn't it?

What are you, an intellectual or something?

This is it.

How old do you feel now?

My real age, 22.

Thanks.

Well...

Hey...

The story about you being sick... Was it true?

That's up to you.

Take care.

HOLE

What do you remember?

Any clues?

No matter how insignificant they might seem.

Hole...

Hole?

Hole?

A...hole.

Hole.

Hole.

A hole.

A hole?

This one?

This hole?

No.

Not that.

This one?

This one?

This?

Do you feel anything when you look at this hole?

Large Hole

No.

This?

This?

This?

This?

This?

This?

This?

This?

This?

This?

This hole, right?

Close, but not quite.

- This? - No.

This hole?

- No. - This, right?

- Then how about this? - No.

This?

- This one? - No.

Isn't this it?

- This? - No.

- This isn't it? - No.

- This is it, right? - No.

This?

- This is it, right? - It's not.

It's like that...

A chimney?

Seems like a clue.

It's similar.

I think it's a shaft.

A shaft?

A shaft.

He must have fallen down a shaft.

It's the shock from the fall.

Can you remember anything else?

I was...

like...

like this...

That pose...

I was doing something like this.

A construction worker.

You were a construction worker, weren't you?

Hole.

Hole.

How was it?

Today's hole...

Everyone...

It's time to die.

I wonder how long it's been since it started...

By the time it was noticed it was already too late.

It began when a voice was heard.

They didn't understand what it was.

When a certain person touched a certain stone, a certain voice was heard.

People said it was nothing but noise.

People said it was a message.

People said it was the voice of their ancestors or the voice of god.

In any case, as soon as a person touched the stone, they felt it resonate with their senses.

When touching the stone, people became able to resonate with others,

like a form of mutual telepathy, without regard for distance, language, race, or state of mind.

It was a wonderfully moving experience.

The religion of the stone quickly gained a tremendous amount of followers.

But soon, for those of us who had been awakened to the resonance by the stone,

it became possible via stones of no particular importance.

Then, people shared a distinct vision.

They saw things like stone circles on ley lines and historic sites, including Stonehenge.

People near those acupuncture points on the face of the earth had a more intense experience.

It soon became clear.

It was a warning.

It spread across the earth in a flash, like AIDS.

Strange outbreaks of calculi, hardened vessels and lymph nodes...

The stone disease began with the human body becoming just like a stone.

Using completely new silicon compounds,

high-speed LSI chips that didn't require extreme cooling measures were created.

Around the time they became ubiquitous,

the electromagnetic waves from the chips

finally began to have a negative effect on the human mind.

Tens of tons of plant life were being destroyed every second,

and the earth's precious water was drying up.

This had a great effect on the ecosystem, accelerating the desiccation of the land.

No one thought it had anything to do with them directly.

But it was clear that it was the accumulation of multiple effects.

People feared the stone disease,

but if they could at least save consciousness, memory, and wisdom...

That is, preserving personality, the mind, the self in a semi-permanent state

by replicating it onto a computer chip.

People became determined to preserve humans and their cultures

after their water-based bodies were gone.

If people could develop self-managing, self-repairing,

self-replicating and immortal computers, as well as robot technology,

then they could evolve, changing into totally new forms of life.

With that simple wish, a final glimmer of hope,

a cycle of technology development races began.

It seems that human bodies hadn't changed in the last million years,

and the brain had changed little in the last 40,000 years.

Without the outbreak of stone disease,

human evolution would be over. We'd be living fossils.

50 million years ago, our dolphin and whale companions returned to the sea

from their terrestrial lives, and their minds and bodies changed again.

Perhaps if we had humbly and sincerely followed their advice,

drawing closer to the water of life,

the possibility could have existed for us.

But the dinosaurs once ruled the earth for a time and disappeared in a flash.

It wouldn't be strange for humans to do the same.

The me that exists as a replication on a chip...

It has no body. It's like a ghost.

My memory, which knows every single cell in detail, travels back and forth in an instant

from the beginning of the universe, time and time again.

A long, long journey in the blink of an eye...

I no longer understand my self.

Is it the original me, turned to stone?

Is it the me replicated on the chip?

It doesn't matter whether it's a dream or a memory. It's doesn't matter what the truth is.

I can't say, nor can anyone.

But for some strange reason, I feel so alive.

Even though I have no body.

I taste the air, bathe in the sun's radiance, and feel the chill of the night.

And, like a paramecium that is beyond the light's reach,

yet still in sync with the cycle of the sun,

so does my stone self live in rhythm with the sun and the universe.

I feel the joy of being a child of the sun and the universe.

Tatsuo Yamada Masashi Kojima

Chiemi Tachihara Sumiko Ōyama

Tomorowo Taguchi Toshiya Sakai

Suzuki Matsuo Hairi Katagiri

Mai Hōshō

Produced by Takenori Sentō and Masaetsu Satō

Written by Sōgo Ishii and Isamu Uno

Cinematography by Norimichi Kasamatsu Music by Tokyo Dowser

Directed by Sōgo Ishii

Subtitles by nitroblast