Mamoru Oshii makes absorbing science fiction about bodies and minds that technology has made difficult to understand. We recommend his patient, melancholy cinema, with a warning that the explanations are sometimes more confusing than the pictures.
Fi1m perspective
Oshii often stops the dialogue and lets a montage unfold to Kenji Kawai's music. Kawai helps those stretches hold our attention; we are allowed to look without having everything explained. In Ghost in the Shell (1995), the animated city gives his questions about being human a convincing setting long before the dialogue finishes explaining them. We recommend it for that city and for its willingness to imagine technological change without treating it simply as a disaster. The plotting demands patience, and some of the explanations only make it harder.
The sparse dialogue and surreal imagery of Angel's Egg (1985) had established his meditative style after television work on Urusei Yatsura. With the creative collective Headgear, he directed the Patlabor films, refining his approach to near-future settings in Patlabor 2 (1993). These settings gave his interest in technology somewhere concrete to develop. International recognition came with Ghost in the Shell; he later explored virtual reality in the live-action Avalon (2001).
We were unsettled by the exposed bodies in Ghost in the Shell, because their mechanical elements make their human appearance difficult to trust. The repeated exposure has a purpose: we cannot use the body's surface to decide what sort of being this is. That does not remove the discomfort of repeatedly undressing an animated woman, and the film does not wholly justify it. What keeps us with him is his willingness to consider that technological change might bring something other than disaster. He allows us to be curious about a possibility that also disturbs us.
His weakness is the amount of explaining he sometimes requires us to sit through. Ghost in the Shell has passages that make an already demanding plot harder to follow, and its people could use more warmth. Its precise, violent action is welcome partly because it gives us a pleasure that needs no explanation. The dense, quotation-heavy dialogue of Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004) suggests that this habit did not diminish with experience. Start with Ghost in the Shell, and do not make it the household's choice for a cheerful evening.
Biography
Mamoru Oshii is a Japanese film director, screenwriter and television director. He was born on 8 August 1951 in Tokyo and graduated from Tokyo Gakugei University in 1976. He began his career at Tatsunoko Productions, working as a storyboard artist before directing anime series and films.
Oshii directed the first OVA, Dallos (1983). He is known for directing Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer (1984), Angel's Egg (1985), Patlabor 2: The Movie (1993), Ghost in the Shell (1995), Avalon (2001) and Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004). He also wrote the screenplay or original story for several of these and other projects, including Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade (1999).
