Post by klep on Apr 18, 2016 12:39:09 GMT -6
MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 4/18: Ghost in the Shell
In the 1980s through the early 1990s Japan was in a technological renaissance. By some chance the Japanese economy had latched onto a growth industry of unimaginable potential. Every day electronics manufacturers and software developers were coming up with something new, and consumers around the world were buying products with brand names like Sony, Hitachi, or Toshiba.
The natural result of this surge in growth and technological progress was an interest in what it meant and where it was going, and Ghost in the Shell is one of this interest's best expressions. Masamune Shirow's novel (and the film adapted from it by Mamoru Oshii) draws a detailed world in which technology has given us many wonders - primarily the ability to shift our consciousnesses into cybernetic bodies, and even cybernetic brains. It then proceeds to interrogate what this would mean for humanity. What happens when consciousness can be digitized, altered, and duplicated? Who are we? What separates us from a computer program?
While Ghost in the Shell asks these questions in the usually overly straightforward manner of having characters just asking them, in this film they are still nonetheless asked elegantly. The primary characters of the film are members of a secretive and elite Japanese governmental anti-terrorism security force known as Section 9, and as the film begins they are attempting to track down a hacker known as the Puppet Master who has recently begun operating in Japan. The Puppet Master is so-called because rather than take any actions himself, he hacks the brains of more or less innocent victims and turns them into puppets to do his bidding for him.
Section 9's chief operative and field leader is Major Motoko Kusanagi, a woman who is a full cyborg - which means she has a cybernetic brain and a fully cybernetic body. Dealing with a foe like the Puppet Master causes her to question her own identity. If brains are so vulnerable to being hacked, how can she possibly know who she is? Is she just the collection of her memories and experiences, or is there some unknowable True Self from which some malicious hacker or incompetent technician has cut her off? At one poignant moment she questions whether she's even truly alive, or if she died long ago when her brain was cyberized. She even has a Double Life of Veronique moment when she sees a woman in a restaurant who has the same model body as hers.
The answers to this question are complicated even further by the late-film revelation that the Puppet Master is not actually a human at all, but rather a program created by the government to influence world events which gained self-awareness. At this point we are left to ponder not only identity and what makes someone human, but also what is the nature of life itself? What separates life from unlife? The film even asks what procreation means for a digital, artificial being.
Another big part of what makes Ghost in the Shell so enthralling is the care with which its world is drawn (both figuratively and literally). The Tokyo of the film's world has grown both in size and in technology, but the rising tide did not carry all boats. You have brilliant, gleaming skyscrapers and low-tech undercities. Cyborg officers chase criminals in cloaks of invisibility through crowded old-fashioned street markets. Shining bridges cross old neighborhoods rising sea levels have submerged. There's a realism to the mix of technology that betrays a real understanding of who technology benefits and who it leaves behind.
The film is further accompanied by a score from Kenji Kawai that evokes the Major's haunted, existential self-doubt and perfectly complements the quiet montages and still shots of the city. Indeed, it is these quiet moments that give the film much of its power. There's a wonderful montage of city life, a shot of the Major coming up from a dive, a moment of resignation as the Major wakes up and looks out her window, and more that don't openly ask the film's big questions but do serve to reinforce them and shade in both the main character and the world in which she lives. It is, in short (literally, only 83 minutes), a masterpiece of science fiction, and one of my personal favorite films.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 4/25: Tokyo Gore Police
I can't say I really know anything about this film, but c'mon! Look at that name! Don't you want to watch a movie called Tokyo Gore Police? This film is available on Amazon Instant Video, though it is not free for Prime members and you may have to tell Amazon you want to see adult items when you search for it.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 4/14: Midnight Special
I'll put up a post for this Wednesday, but I won't have much to say myself because it has sadly not been possible for me to see. If you're luckier than me, you might find it still in theaters.
In the 1980s through the early 1990s Japan was in a technological renaissance. By some chance the Japanese economy had latched onto a growth industry of unimaginable potential. Every day electronics manufacturers and software developers were coming up with something new, and consumers around the world were buying products with brand names like Sony, Hitachi, or Toshiba.
The natural result of this surge in growth and technological progress was an interest in what it meant and where it was going, and Ghost in the Shell is one of this interest's best expressions. Masamune Shirow's novel (and the film adapted from it by Mamoru Oshii) draws a detailed world in which technology has given us many wonders - primarily the ability to shift our consciousnesses into cybernetic bodies, and even cybernetic brains. It then proceeds to interrogate what this would mean for humanity. What happens when consciousness can be digitized, altered, and duplicated? Who are we? What separates us from a computer program?
While Ghost in the Shell asks these questions in the usually overly straightforward manner of having characters just asking them, in this film they are still nonetheless asked elegantly. The primary characters of the film are members of a secretive and elite Japanese governmental anti-terrorism security force known as Section 9, and as the film begins they are attempting to track down a hacker known as the Puppet Master who has recently begun operating in Japan. The Puppet Master is so-called because rather than take any actions himself, he hacks the brains of more or less innocent victims and turns them into puppets to do his bidding for him.
Section 9's chief operative and field leader is Major Motoko Kusanagi, a woman who is a full cyborg - which means she has a cybernetic brain and a fully cybernetic body. Dealing with a foe like the Puppet Master causes her to question her own identity. If brains are so vulnerable to being hacked, how can she possibly know who she is? Is she just the collection of her memories and experiences, or is there some unknowable True Self from which some malicious hacker or incompetent technician has cut her off? At one poignant moment she questions whether she's even truly alive, or if she died long ago when her brain was cyberized. She even has a Double Life of Veronique moment when she sees a woman in a restaurant who has the same model body as hers.
The answers to this question are complicated even further by the late-film revelation that the Puppet Master is not actually a human at all, but rather a program created by the government to influence world events which gained self-awareness. At this point we are left to ponder not only identity and what makes someone human, but also what is the nature of life itself? What separates life from unlife? The film even asks what procreation means for a digital, artificial being.
Another big part of what makes Ghost in the Shell so enthralling is the care with which its world is drawn (both figuratively and literally). The Tokyo of the film's world has grown both in size and in technology, but the rising tide did not carry all boats. You have brilliant, gleaming skyscrapers and low-tech undercities. Cyborg officers chase criminals in cloaks of invisibility through crowded old-fashioned street markets. Shining bridges cross old neighborhoods rising sea levels have submerged. There's a realism to the mix of technology that betrays a real understanding of who technology benefits and who it leaves behind.
The film is further accompanied by a score from Kenji Kawai that evokes the Major's haunted, existential self-doubt and perfectly complements the quiet montages and still shots of the city. Indeed, it is these quiet moments that give the film much of its power. There's a wonderful montage of city life, a shot of the Major coming up from a dive, a moment of resignation as the Major wakes up and looks out her window, and more that don't openly ask the film's big questions but do serve to reinforce them and shade in both the main character and the world in which she lives. It is, in short (literally, only 83 minutes), a masterpiece of science fiction, and one of my personal favorite films.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 4/25: Tokyo Gore Police
I can't say I really know anything about this film, but c'mon! Look at that name! Don't you want to watch a movie called Tokyo Gore Police? This film is available on Amazon Instant Video, though it is not free for Prime members and you may have to tell Amazon you want to see adult items when you search for it.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 4/14: Midnight Special
I'll put up a post for this Wednesday, but I won't have much to say myself because it has sadly not been possible for me to see. If you're luckier than me, you might find it still in theaters.