This movie has been criticized as outdated by some in the industry, but I do know that Mamoru Oshii is a bit stubborn. That doesn't detract from the greatness and goodness of this movie.
Beneath the surface we can observe, Mamoru Oshii injects abstraction, as well as philosophy, into this film. Like his previous films, he always thinks a lot and notices things that others won't. Contrary to all "utilitarian" prejudices, good works should beware of mediocre beauty, and works are to provide people with a possibility and a world view.
There will be no spoilers here, but the work will be explained and discussed.
1: A general description of the work
Only as an aesthetic phenomenon, the existence of the world is reasonable. Seeing the surface phenomenon, this is normal. In order to deepen the understanding of the film, I will give a general explanation of the work here.
First of all, that is why some people don't understand this movie. The problem is: the sense of substitution of the movie is somewhat lacking, or it is not related to our daily life. However, for those who plan to watch a movie seriously, the way of immersion is not important.
We can find that the author uses the experimental theoretical basis-turning animation into reality and restoring reality, but it is also different from the abstract meaning of reality. I think the director has carefully arranged it, otherwise the overall appearance of the film cannot be like this Perfect, the scene can't be so believable, it requires a lot of camera skills, narrative understanding, and exaggeration. As far as form serves content, I think Mamoru Oshii's work is very reasonable. And what it is better than other realism is that most realism movies just tell a complete story, Oshii Mamoru not only tells the story, but also explores the core of realism, and sorts out the point of view, which is the majority of reality Movies are nowhere near as good.
After watching one, it is all the content for the audience who want to understand this movie, and the rest can be omitted.
Two: In-depth understanding of the work
Mamoru Oshii's works have natural techniques, not obsessed with deliberate creation, and are not pretentious and elegant works. Here I state my understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of the work.
I think Mamoru Oshii must have added philosophical thoughts to this work, one of which is: realism.
Realism, in a sense, is pessimistic in its philosophy. I think what Mamoru Oshii wants to express is that the protagonist is in a kind of reincarnation, borrowing from Nietzsche's pessimism. In Greece, tragedy means seriousness, and tragedy is an art; Oshii put his understanding of "Dasein" in this realistic work, hoping that young people can experience it and realize that life requires effort. But as I said earlier, aesthetics are sometimes estranged, and some people can't bring in understanding without this kind of aesthetics. Remember such a story, in Greek mythology Midas asked Syllenian: What is the best thing? That is not to be born, not to exist. The next best thing is to die quickly; life is like this, absurd, meaningless, repetitive, we live in such a cycle, the daily life that is controlled by others, thinks that each day is different but similar. The protagonist is a hero who, like Sisyphus, keeps rolling stones to the top of the mountain.
The second is: nature
It is wrong to pursue "clarity". A work does not need to prove its own world view, nor to show favor to the audience, so this work by Mamoru Oshii is not "clear". He carefully designed the whole story without any The lines that are understood and understood, not the plot that is pushed for the sake of pushing.
The third is: eternity and life
Platonism is the eternal yearning for inanimate death. "Eternity in the unchanging sense and timeless is a complete fiction of anti-real life." This is the repeated fate experienced by the protagonist, which is actually the highest affirmation of the changing temporal life world. It effectively dispels the false authenticity and sanctity of eternal timeless super-perceptual ideals such as "eternal happiness" and "absolute perfection", and affirms the confusion of contemporary youth and us about reality. But what Oshii was about to say was not fully understood by the audience. "Suppose the devil breaks into your most unbearable loneliness one day or one night and says to you, 'Your life now and your past life is your future life. It will repeat itself over and over again, with nothing new, every pain, joy, thought, sigh, and everything in your life, big and small, unspeakable, repeating itself in you, in the same order, in the same way. There will be pillars and moonlight in the trees at this time, and there will be such moments and devils like me. The eternal hourglass of existence will be in constant motion, and in this hourglass you are but a grain of dust! "However, this is our life! So the gist of Oshii Mamoru's film should be: young people need to see the joy of fighting and face the pain, be sure and love life.
Three: Why is the work so good?
We can see that different from the previous animation works, the artist even depicted the jaw movements of the characters when they spoke, and the voice and rhythm of the characters' dialogues were not like reading a script. status.
Also, there must be some people who ask why the director is reluctant to make it clear, what is going on, and what the protagonist has experienced; I think this question is a bit silly, but it also asks the essence: why is Mamoru Oshii unwilling to express it clearly? What's wrong with being "clear"? As I said earlier, what Oshii Mori wants is a natural atmosphere, because "brightness" is a stipulation of scientific optimism, a kind of misunderstood rationality. The ideal state of art is definitely not simply "brightness", but the tension and conflict in the binary relationship. I guess this must be part of Oshii's theoretical basis for this film, and I have to say it's very good, very unique, but most of the time the average audience doesn't care. However, it is often necessary to think about the details that others have not thought of, in order to have a better grasp of the overall situation. Although it seems to be only a slight difference to ordinary audiences, it is this slight difference that makes him more realistic than most of the previous ones. The work is more complete.
Generally speaking, it is a point of view, and vision is the means to express this point of view. Most of the works will be too bloated due to the lack of the director's control ability and the improper processing of the team, and finally the point of view is missing. Sometimes there are too many bad works. , good work looks bad, to most non-professionals. The work must finally express the point of view in some way, otherwise what is the difference between listing a bunch of unrelated elements?
Therefore, the entire film is directed by a unified design from the beginning to the end, from the framework, the ideas expressed, the plot to the picture. Personally, I think this is the director's best film yet.
After reading my understanding, I still have some doubts, and I can look at it from another perspective: all artistic means and works that are truly incomprehensible (not including those that are made up, just piled up various elements) are There is a great spirit of exploration and understanding of perspective.
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