Ghost in the Shell: Innocence...
DVD release

In 1996, "The Ghost in the Shell" came out and took us all into the distopian world of a near future cyber reality. Set three years later, Innocence brings us back into it, and provides a launching point into more. What makes a man? His body? His "soul"? How much of either can he loose before before becoming something else?

At it's heart, it's a hardcore cop show. The gang from Public Safety Section 9 are back. They're dealing with terrorists, gangsters, and the realities of a world where technological advancement has blurred the hard line at the edge of humanity to a faded gray smudge and allowed the creation of robots that are indistinguishable from normal humans except for something they can see and manipulate but can't make called "ghost".

This is NOT a kid's show. I'm not sure who or what got kicked, killed or kissed to give this thing a PG-13 MPAA rating here in the states. People are killed all through the film, and blood and viscera are splattered in several places. The entire premise involves female robots who are designed and built for the sex trade who look disturbingly like children and are often shown in the film naked and murdering people gruesomely with their bare hands. One of the reasons the MPAA didn't rate this one higher is because most of the deaths and nakedness and implied sex is the robots, which are referred to as "dolls". To them, the 30 or so naked Hadaly who go after Batou on the ship don't matter any more than a naked Barbie.

It kind of highlights the point of the film in an odd way. There are people who range from having almost no hardware involved (Togusa) to people who only have a part of their brain and their brainstem to call their own (Batou) to people who have nothing but a ghost left to themselves (the Major). They are all real, and they all have life. There is no real obvious visible difference between the two with a physical existence, other than the fact that Batou is twice Togusa's size and built like Vladimir Kulich. When the Major shows up things get even muddier. She has to take one of the dolls to do her work and cram enough of herself into it to get things done. On the outside, she looks like them except for Batou's chivalrous gift of his kevlar jacket. Each of the dolls has a shard of the ghost of a kidnapped little girl in her, though, too. So, which one of these don't count as "people"? Which deaths matter and which ones don't?

The film takes it's time getting places. The pace can seem very slow in places, and then in one stride it skips into a maddened overdrive that's hard to follow. This isn't a mad race against time, or the explosive action-fest we're used to. With nearly infinite knowledge available in their E-brains, a philosophically minded man can sit around and trade profound quotes with his partner all day. And in a couple spots they do. Then they go soften up a yakuza office with a box-fed heavy machine gun. Then they go to a grocery store. And then there's a Chinese parade. Somehow this starts to make perfect sense after a while.

With these movies, knowing something about the director is far more important than it is in American movies. Yes, knowing that Kevin Smith swears like a fishwife and Spielberg has a strangely bright view of the world can help, but they didn't actually hold onto the camera for their films. In the anime world, the director is often weilding a pencil with the rest of the animation staff, and they write a lot of their own scripts. In the case of the "Ghost in the Shell: Innocence", he is a key factor. He wrote the script, with the assistance of the creator of the original manga. Oshii-san is known for his dark, nihilistic films. "Avalon", "Talking Head", and even "Mobile Force Patlabor" all contain a dark future worlds. In his eye, the glass is not only half empty, it's been used as a makeshift ashtray.

The look and feel of the film is a cyberpunk fantasyland. His worlds are deep with color and texture and detail, but it's a dark and dirty place. There's a noir sense to it. In the real-world sequences, the only thing bright is the staggering flourescent fixture throwing a cone of dirty purple light over the character's shoulder in a grocery store. The "virtual experiences" that they go through during the film have a heightened reality. The computer effects are sharp shards of brightness stabbing into a murk. His work in blending 2D and CGI animation gives a surreal viewpoint to even the simplest scenes. Then he'll let out all the digital stops and just drop your jaw.

Pixel-wizardry aside, there's a matter-of-fact realism to the movements and the actions the characters take that makes it feel more present than many live-action films. It's characteristic of the Japanese style of animationf. It's hard to explain if you're not watching it. The way the character's actions are designed, it looks far more real than most actors would ever let themselves move in front of a camera. Every step is lovingly displayed from loading a clip to preparing a dog's meal. Masses move and bend, and it's even awkward sometimes. On top of the usual Japanese impassivity you add cyborg features and cybercom conversations that leech all the expression out of the faces. They're almost Vulcan in places. The details are in the worlds. The backgrounds aren't static in many places; the people are animated to move in the crowd scenes. Batou's bathroom looks like yours or mine, but the fixtures that he would have no use for are obviously gathering dust and clutter. Ishikawa is the jerk he's always been, and drives a gorgeous antique roadster. It's one of the geeky pleasures of this style. No matter how close you look, no matter how many times you see it, there's more to notice.

As far as the soundtrack, well, it works for me but I'd say it's an acquired taste for most. Unless the three little girls who sing for Mothra shrilling what sounds like an anthem from a Noh play to the accompaniment of Taiko drums and wind chimes is your thing. If it's any consolation, most Japanese people can't understand the ancient dialect he's using, either. Just hang in there. The drums really kick in, and then it develops a far more accessible sort of feeling. Don't get too comfortable, though. The music goes from mode to mode all the way through. There's a classic torch song in the middle, followed by a rendition of it on a music box. Each piece is balanced with the action and the story and each other and they're all interwoven. There's a whole house that's a music box that comes in later has this subtle eerie sound like they'd hooked it up to a pipe-organ. In the making-of stuff I found out it's not a digital effect - they actually made the music box and recorded the music and then took it to a huge old warehouse and re-recorded it with the echoes bouncing off old stone walls. It's an effort that makes all the difference, though. That piece turns a string of eye-candy and psychobabble into a strange unbalanced realm.

If you're a cyberpunk fan, this is a great example of the genre. If you like to have a little thinking with your action, I'd definately recommend it. If you like a lighter sort of anime, I'd go with the TV show (Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex) and see how you like it before jumping into this one. It's set before the first film so you aren't ruining anything for yourself if you go that route. If these don't sound good at all, I'd just hang on for Miyazaki's next, "Howl's Moving Castle" which premiers in the US on June 10th.