This DVD arrived the other day from bucket in the states as return for a favour I did her a few weeks back and I watched it alone after Mette went to bed because I knew she wouldn't like it.
The first 'Ghost in the Shell' was released in 1995 by director Mamoru Oshii. It featured amazing visuals, an interesting story and ground breaking animation. I have it on a very poor video recording from about '98 and I've long wished it on DVD, its probably my favourite animated film ever ...after 'Akira'. It is without a doubt the most inspiring cartoon I have ever seen with relationship to the ambience of urban decay though. In the middle of 'Ghost in the Shell' is a circa 6 minute long segment with nothing but music and contemplative visuals of a futuristic Japanese city which thumbs its nose at anything Disney, or any one else ever managed.
And now comes a sequel. The story continues on a new angle since the main character of the first film is no longer present but stays with the main theme of the 'ghost story' which revolves around the differences, or lack there of, between human and artificial intelligence as the former gradually assimilates the latter, and vice versa. The animation is fairly standard Japanese manga style and the whole, on the whole, works very well.
So, the attention to detail is still present, in fact this film is so overwhelmingly full of details it easily out strips the original, but the urban ambience is missing. There is also a lot more violence in this film, which the first managed to underplay quite effectively. Here there is a sense of going one step further but this left me feeling slightly impatient. The sudden bursts of gun fire which characterized the first film have here been replaced by long drawn out machine gun fire and an over all sense of aggression. This is mostly due to the nature of the story which in this film lends itself more to violence than the first, but the casualty of all this gun play is the surreal, dream like ambience of the first film.
Still, its a fantastic, well drawn, animation and certainly a film I shall watch many times. Its far better than anything I could ever produce (except in my dreams) and well worth watching if you are interested in real science fiction in animated form. Thanks Betka.
Now I have to buy the first one on DVD!
5 comments:
I enjoyed the second far more than the first. You have to watch it a few times, as there is just so much and with the subtitles it is hard to take it all in.
Did you get a lot of the references to philosophy, religion, folklore art etc?
That movie has a few of my most favorite animated sequences. I love when they go to the city to find the informant and the opening scenes with the parade.
I also love when they do a fly over the corporations HQ.
Wikipedia has a good basic article about all the connections and references in the movie..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell_2:_Innocence
ps I am glad you finally got it! :)
I got some of the literary references, but probably not all of them. I liked the visuals a lot, but I liked the visuals of the first much more. This is probably because they appeal to my personal aesthetic more. I have a fascination for urban decay and photorealist paintings of such.
have you seen appleseed or Lain?
I've seen the original 'Appleseed' in a comic book shop... does that count?
=)
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