1995’s “Ghost in the Shell”, directed by Mamoru Oshii.
Starring Atsuko Tanaka, Akio Otsuka, and Lemasa Kayumi.
“GitS” is set in the not too far off year of 2029, in a
fictional Japanese city, not unlike current day Hong Kong. We meet the cyborg
(synthetic body with human brain), Major Motoko Kusanagi. She and her cyborg
partner, Batou, work for a government security task force called Section 9.
Their current mission is to track down a cyber terrorist, the Puppet Master. The
Puppet Master has been hacking into people’s consciousness (consciousness here is referred
to, as “Ghosts”) and having them do acts after erasing their
memories. Eventually, despite the best efforts of various bureaucratic
government agencies, the Major is able to come synthetic face to synthetic face
with Puppet Master and discover what her ghost wants.
In this future, we witness an increasingly automated and
artificial society, that has embraced the idea that specialization (that which
is the differences of individual humans) and their chaotic diversity, is grist
for the mill of digital evolution. Indeed, Oshii’s depictions of the jumbled
cityscape and it’s hyper residents resemble data flowing through fibre optic
cables. Yet, despite the movies’ depiction of a lack of sentimentality towards
humans no longer operating at the top of the food chain, there remains a stirring in the
major’s ghost, with her longing to understand her sense of consciousness and
free will.
Oshii uses the medium of anime to present some big ideas.
Anime’s limitations are fully on display here- wooden animation of characters
(resembling marionettes at times), chaotic ADD imagery, and absolute overload
of exposition to explain complex philosophical ideas, while showing plenty of graphic
violence and T and A. But the ideas in “GitS” are vast and complex, bringing to
mind such graduate student coffee shop conversation staples such as “Real vs.
Unreal”, “Perception vs. Reality”, and “Luddites vs. Machines”. As well, "GitS”’
wooden features and synthetic atmosphere highlights the movie’s central
argument. Finally, for a cartoon it is quite cinematic, with a dynamic opening
sequence, and multiple sequences of silent movement with music playing, to
complement the profound conversations and ideas. Oshii has said that the studio
heads wanted more action in the film, but Oshii wanted to focus on story (the
movie has plenty of violence FYI).
“GitS” has clearly influenced the science fiction world,
from “The Matrix” to “Westworld”. The 1995 version has been hailed as a
masterpiece, and after both watching it and the 2017 live action version, it’s
easy to see why. While it’s plot can get as convoluted as tangled cables, it’s profound and clear eyed ideas are unsettling, like you’ve seen a
ghost.
4/5
Trailer: Click Here.
2017’s “Ghost in the Shell” by Rupert Sanders.
Starring Scarlett Johansson, Juliette Binoche, Pilou Asbaek,
Takeshi Kitano, Michael Pitt, and Peter Ferdinando.
As explained above, “GitS” explores a future dystopia where
human and machine increasingly blur together, but from a live action point of view.
Changes for the redo include the Major now working for a corporation that
combats terrorism (lead by Ferdinando), as always with her trusty Bilou (a
great Asbaek) companion. The Michael Pitt character is committing acts of
terrorism, and so the team tries to track down and eliminate him. Pitt has some
important information for The Major, who’s system has been glitching, much to
the distress of her lab technician (Binoche). The Major is now noticeably less
Asian, seeing how Johansson’s background is Danish-American (so she’s Danish-Aboriginal?
Thanks Wikipedia).
The film generated a fair bit of controversy about the so
called whitewashing of the central protagonist. I don’t have a problem with
Johansson’s casting- she played a robot-like vacant being in both “Lucy” and
“Under the Skin” very well, plus her experience as Black Widow pays off in the
fight scenes here. What I do have a problem with is the whitewashing of both the
setting and the plot. One of the important themes of the original “GitS” is the
issue of identity, which Oshii explored in the fascinating Hong Kong themed metropolis,
itself a former Chinese island colonized by the British but occupied by the
Japanese during WWII. Here, we see a generic future, devoid of any identity
except green screens, in a PG-13 world. The live action redo even recreates
scenes from the original anime classic, but they are facsimiles and feel as such.
Same goes for the corporate sabotage trope.
2017’s redo features some really nice art design, and some
lovely visuals. And it has some uncomfortable scenes, as we watch a human being
who’s actually a cyborg take off pieces of their skin. But it features almost
none of the gentle grace, philosophically advanced ideas, and metaphor of the
original. I’ll leave it to Soren Andersen of the Seattle Times to say it better
than I: “It’s somehow only fitting… “Ghost in the Shell” leaves you with the
feeling that something has been lost in translation.”
2.5/5
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