A good example is Kusanagi's wry comment at the verybeginning of the film. All of the above comments refer to the subtitledJapanese version of the film, NOT the English dub.
This is filmmakingthat should be seen and discussed. The film argues thatthis will occur within the next thirty years, and the superbly ambiguousending inspires us to come up with our own ideas of what will happen tohumanity once this new life form begins to reproduce. But it's the movie's ideasthat make it great, particularly in the last half hour, when thoughtfulviewers learn what this story is all about- the emergence of a new kind oflife form, an intelligent and self-aware intelligence that can liveindefinitely without ever inhabiting a physical body.
Gunfire, martial artscombat, and car chases are depicted exactly as they would occur in the realworld- without fast music or Armageddon-style hyper-editing or any of theneedless cinematic baggage we've come to expect. The film'saction sequences are strikingly different from the overly stylizedsymphonies of destruction seen in most action films. As brilliant as the comics are, I really prefer the filmversion, which eliminates the nearly pornographic T&A (the film has nuditybut it's clearly not meant to be titillating) and all of the exaggeratedcomic relief which only detracted from the manga in my opinion. Masamune Shirow's stunninglybelievable vision of the future makes the jump from manga to animeremarkably well. The film is stylish, artistic, and beautiful. Every time I show this movie to non-anime fans I have to explainbeforehand that Ghost in the Shell is a serious work of science fiction andthat everything in it, including the adult content, is part of the point themovie makes about where our society is headed. The movie kind of gets in its own way- within the first five minutes wesee the heroine's nude body as well as a very messy head-exploding scene,and many of the viewers who would otherwise end up enthralled by the film'sabundant style and intelligence immediately dismiss it as exploitative animetrash. I find it terribly unfortunate that theonly American viewers familiar with Ghost in the Shell are anime fans, manyof whom overlook the film's complexity and see only its nudity and violence. I would go so far as to say that it'sthe second best science fiction film I've ever seen (behind 2001, ofcourse), but no one knows about it.
0 kommentar(er)
