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Cracks in the ‘Shell’: Oshii Revisits the Matrix-Inspiring 'Ghost in the Shell"Director of the first anime film considered for top prize at the Cannes Film Festival free-associates about the meaning of life and killer dolls wiping out mankind.
To explain the theme of his latest animated film, “Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence,” Director Mamoru Oshii holds his right hand like a blade and motions back and forth like he’s slicing into the tender flesh of his left arm. As he’s carving into his imaginary wound, he explains the fundamental question he was trying to address in the movie: If you keep losing body parts, what would be the last part that would keep you unique? When he was making the original “Ghost in the Shell” in 1995, the eccentric director thought the answer was the human brain, so the first film was appropriately populated with futuristic characters whose brains were the only body parts that distinguished them from robotic life forms. Oshii made the main character Batou, a cyborg detective, one of the most celebrated anime torchbearers of all time when his female counterpart, simply called The Major, surrendered her brain into the network and disappeared, mentally leaving behind her physical “shell.” Oshii and the film were widely credited for influencing “The Matrix” series, a distinction that the director presently groans about when a journalist asks for comments on the films’ parallels. This is perhaps the bazillionth time he’s heard the same question, but nevertheless insists that they are two completely different movies, just with similar plot points and film techniques. But nine years have quickly passed since the original and in that time Oshii continued to examine this question with the same theoretical eye that distinguished the first “Ghost in the Shell” from the other sugary pop anime being churned out in Japan. And Batou is back in “Innocence,” brooding as he did when he was first created almost a decade ago, but now the year is 2032 and he is investigating the case of a gynoid (a “hyper-realistic female robot created specifically for sexual companionship”) who malfunctions and kills her owner. Big oopsie by the manufacturers, but because it’s an Oshii film, it gets far more complicated than just a recall of faulty products. Oshii is also back on the publicity circuit, fresh from Tokyo to face the press on the DreamWorks compound, which is orchestrating the film’s U.S. premiere. Fifty three years old, but smaller in stature than your average teenage boy, Oshii fields questions by way of a translator from Production I.G., the premier Japanese production house that also worked on the animated segment in Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill: Volume 1.” He laughs after hearing every question, the corners of his eyes crinkling with merriment, and answers them diplomatically. He does not establish eye contact except when he’s making like he’s severing his own arm. Again, his question of body parts falling away is revisited in the sequel, but this time the director has come to a different conclusion — he decides that what actually makes an individual truly unique is his body and his relationships with others. In the sequel, Batou maintains his last bit of humanness by nurturing a basset hound, arguably the real star of this film, and rekindles a relationship with The Major. Circumstances have changed and she certainly does not look like she used to, but Batou’s unchanged relationship is proof of his humanity. It’s not a far stretch from Oshii’s own life in Japan where he lives with a basset hound named Gabriel, who he admits to cooking every meal for. On this special day, Oshii is even wearing a t-shirt with the likeness of the same breed of dog splashed across his chest. Does PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) need a new spokesperson? “Taking care of the dog is [Batou’s] way of taking care of his own body,” he said, adding, “When I was making [“Innocence”] I came to one thought: maybe the brain or the head isn’t that special. And traditionally in Japan, the brain or the head isn’t that important.” Oshii could have said that giant shrimps were taking over the world or effused any other far-fetched theory because his explanation is, well, vague and the journalists speaking with the director are so silent that eyes blinking could be heard.
So Oshii explains further: “I believe people have already lost their human bodies. People spend so much of their hours watching television and so many hours on the telephone, so the substitute of your own body is your family … taking care of a thing or another person is actually a substitute of taking care of your own body.” Despite the indelible importance of the first film, many critics are not biting on the sequel, complaining that there’s excessive philosophical rambling. Since its premiere at the Cannes International Film Festival this year, the first time an anime film ever competed for the competition’s top Palme d’Or Award, critics have been sounding off. A JoBlo.com review described the film as “a really complicated, boring, technical computer manual,” and there are many other reviews that don’t mince words in describing the film’s complex story. But lucky for Oshii, he doesn’t pay attention to the press, fan fare and box office counts. He likes for films to ferment on video and DVD, developing character like good cheese. “It takes a couple of years for a movie’s reputation and the people’s perception of the film to be fixed. There are so few films that stand the test of time,” he said. But since “Spirited Away” walked away with an Academy Award last year, there are rumblings about “Innocence” being nominated this year and perhaps even winning, if not only on its own merits then on the credibility of its reputation as one of the most important anime of all time. Even that will be okay for the director and his basset hound, but it’s still to be determined whether Oshii will include his spiel on body parts in his acceptance speech. ‘Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence’ opens Sept. 17.
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