Jamshyd
Bluelight Crew
I have just finished watching this. Twice. Granted, the film is about 30 years old, but it is just as relevant today as it was back then.
I am not otaku by any stretch... however, I really admire Mamoru Oshii's distinct style. For those who don't know, Oshii is the director of the Ghost in The Shell movies. Up to this point, the GitS movies were the only works I have seen by Oshii, and they have always been all-time favourites (especially the 2nd). I was glad to find that Oshii's style was just as recognizible back then as it is now, even though he has evolved considerably.
This film is not really a "sequel" to the first one - it merely shares the same characters and set. Even then, the main characters in the 2nd are really just peripheral in the 1st. I have watched the 1st and found it greatly entertaining, but the 2nd is where the money is at.
The film is a wonderfully crafted philosophical piece about the confusion of dreams with reality. In a word, it is a science-fictionesque take on the Japanese folktale of Urashima Taro, the boy who saves a turtle which takes him to an underwater palace, and after he emerges back he finds out that a hundred years have passed in a few minutes. This is weaved in with another explicit reference, that of Chuang-Tzu's famous saying that he dreamt he was a butterfly and now he can no longer tell whether he dreamt he was a butterfly or whether he is a butterfly dreaming his current self.
It seems to precede most other films that explore the same theme, and I wouldn't be surprised if it is indeed the first. It has a wonderful self-referential quality and a lightheartedness that have allowed me to happily watch it a second time in the same day, in which I caught several details and hints that I did not notice the first time round.
The visals are pretty much your basic oldskool 80's anime style, but Oshii's fingerprints are all over it. There are several moments of suspended or slowed-down animation that is almost in total silence. The scenery is rife with references to a post-nuclear war destroyed metropolis. The music is minimal but simply fantastic, one of the best I have heard in any movie.
I highly recommend this one
.
I am not otaku by any stretch... however, I really admire Mamoru Oshii's distinct style. For those who don't know, Oshii is the director of the Ghost in The Shell movies. Up to this point, the GitS movies were the only works I have seen by Oshii, and they have always been all-time favourites (especially the 2nd). I was glad to find that Oshii's style was just as recognizible back then as it is now, even though he has evolved considerably.
This film is not really a "sequel" to the first one - it merely shares the same characters and set. Even then, the main characters in the 2nd are really just peripheral in the 1st. I have watched the 1st and found it greatly entertaining, but the 2nd is where the money is at.
The film is a wonderfully crafted philosophical piece about the confusion of dreams with reality. In a word, it is a science-fictionesque take on the Japanese folktale of Urashima Taro, the boy who saves a turtle which takes him to an underwater palace, and after he emerges back he finds out that a hundred years have passed in a few minutes. This is weaved in with another explicit reference, that of Chuang-Tzu's famous saying that he dreamt he was a butterfly and now he can no longer tell whether he dreamt he was a butterfly or whether he is a butterfly dreaming his current self.
It seems to precede most other films that explore the same theme, and I wouldn't be surprised if it is indeed the first. It has a wonderful self-referential quality and a lightheartedness that have allowed me to happily watch it a second time in the same day, in which I caught several details and hints that I did not notice the first time round.
The visals are pretty much your basic oldskool 80's anime style, but Oshii's fingerprints are all over it. There are several moments of suspended or slowed-down animation that is almost in total silence. The scenery is rife with references to a post-nuclear war destroyed metropolis. The music is minimal but simply fantastic, one of the best I have heard in any movie.
I highly recommend this one
.
