Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
We’ve got all sorts of goodies from the four-month long Seattle International Film Festival today, and first up, there’s this review of GHOST IN THE SHELL 2, which Dreamworks will be releasing through their anime label GO FISH later this year.
Hey kids,
Well, I was waiting for someone more articulate than I to send in a review of the North American premiere of ‘Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence’ last Saturday at SIFF. But, since none of the 800 others in attendance seem to want to step up, I guess it’s up to me. I’ll try to keep it brief, but I’ll probably fail.
The movie opens on Bateau, who is investigating a crime scene where there are two severely dead bodies sprawled across the floor and a young woman sitting against a wall, looking dazed. Bateau approaches her as she suddenly attacks him. Being largely mechanical and incredibly strong, Bateau all but shrugs her off, tossing her against the wall. She whispers "Help me" and self-destructs, literally pulling herself apart, revealing herself to be a robot.
The year is 2032, three years after the events of the original ‘Ghost.’ Bateau still works for Security Police Section 9, his job all but consuming every moment of his mechanized life. He is lonely, going home only to his savagely cute little hound dog, on whom he dotes (at one point we see him holding his dog’s oversized ears up so they don’t fall in his food). He’s haunted by the mysterious fate of his former partner, Major Motoko Kusanagi, and even though he hasn’t seen her since the Puppet Master incident, he still considers her to be his guardian angel,.
Bateau’s partner is now Togusa, who he is willing to accept only because it was Maj. Motoko who first scouted him for Section 9. There have been a string of murders perpetrated, it seems, by gynoids (sort of servant cyborgs) against their masters. Everyone is struggling to understand why these gynoids, seemingly devoid of ghosts, are revolting against their masters. Bateau discovers that these gynoids are actually a new breed of robot called sexaroids (yeah, that’s right). These sexaroids, manufactured by an organization called Locus Solus, are absent of any organic material, yet appear to have ghosts that enable to them to serve their sole function of sexual pleasure.
The enigma of these murderous sexaroids (honestly, there wasn’t a better translation for this word?) forces Bateau to consider just what it is that distinguishes his organic ghost from these artificial variants. Not much, as it turns out.
-Spoiler-
During the slightly-too-surreal-to-be-truly-intense climax of the film, Bateau infiltrates a Locus Solus station located underwater and is attacked by the swarms of gynoids within (think of the first big battle between Neo and Agent Smith in ‘Reloaded,’ but instead of dozens of Hugo Weavings it’s dozens of naked 20-year-old Asian girls). Among the malicious robots there is one who seems to be trying to aide Bateau. So it is that Bateau’s guardian angel, Maj. Motoko, comes to his rescue. As Bateau tries to hold off the onslaught, the Major dives into the Locus Solus system to discover that they have been kidnapping girls and copying their ghosts into the shells of these gynoids. While most have been obsequious to this imprisonment, some have begun revolting against this ‘ghost dubbing’ by murdering their masters. With this knowledge finally surfacing, the captives freed, the Major offers up some encouraging words to Bateau that I can’t remember and disappears again, I think.
-End Spoiler-
Considering that the first ‘Ghost’ was so influential to ‘The Matrix,’ it’s interesting to watch the sequel, which is coming out in the shadow of the two monstrous ‘Matrix’ sequels. I had a bit of trepidation going in, wondering if this could work as well as the first. Thankfully, this appears to be everything that ‘Reloaded/Revolutions’ wasn’t. As such, I’m pretty sure I loved this movie, although I would probably need another 20 or so viewings to confirm that (I admit that by the end I was kinda exhausted and was just trying to get through the rest of the movie without my overworked brain exploding from an apparent philosophically-induced bout of Kopfgeschlagen).
From the first scene it’s evident that this is another glorious product of director Mamoru Oshii. Though there is much use of CG this time around, it’s never distracting, only enhancing the vivid scenery unfolding throughout. And Kenji Kawai offers up another brilliant and emotive score. But as rich as the visuals and music are, the story is where this movie excels. It’s deep and complicated and confusing as all hell, but in a good way. The dialog is smart, making heavy usage of quotes from everyone from Milton to Confucius, but it’s never convoluted. It weaves itself in every possible direction, but the message never gets lost in the discourse. We can try all we want to create a reasonable facsimile of life, but we’ll never succeed, because the best we can do is perfection. One character quips that perfection is for "dolls and deities," for those either devoid of consciousness or hyperconscious. We can create a perfect doll, but we can never reproduce life because life is all about imperfection. This movie is about our glorious failures, and it is those failures that ultimately give us our innocence.
OK, that’s it for me. Sorry for the length, but as the Dude would say, I’ve never been into the whole brevity thing. I also saw the premiere of 'Criminal,' but since Vern already covered that one, I'll skip it. Suffice it to say that John C Reilly is awesome.
Keep up the good work, guys.
Billfro
Wow. Thanks, man. Fascinating stuff.
"Moriarty" out.
