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Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

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Innocence: Ghost in the Shell (Japanese title: Innocence イノセンス, or Innocence: Kokaku Kidotai) is a follow up to the anime Ghost in the Shell, but not primarily a sequel.

Innocence is one of the most ambitious anime movie on the question of animated objects and its representative forms as artificial life.

The Japanese release date was March 6 2004 (Official U.S. Release Date: September 17, 2004). It had a production budget of approximately US $20 million (approx. 2 billion yen). In order to raise such a large amount of money, Production I.G.'s president called Studio Ghibli's president Toshio Suzuki to work on the project. As a result Studio Ghibli is a co-producer.

The movie is directed by Mamoru Oshii, loosely connected to the manga by Masamune Shirow. The movie was produced by Production I.G., which also produced the original movie and the spinoff TV series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.

On the origins of the film, Mamoru Oshii says: "When Production I.G first proposed the project to me, I thought about it for two weeks. I didn't make Innocence as a sequel to Ghost in the Shell. In fact I had a dozen ideas, linked to my views on life, my philosophy, that I wanted to include in this film. [...] I attacked Innocence as a technical challenge; I wanted to go beyond typical animation limits, answer personal questions and at the same time appeal to filmgoers."

Story

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The story of Innocence begins in 2032, when cities are inhabited by the dwindling race of humans, purely mechanical androids and cyborgs like Batou who still have a ghost (human spirit), but are vulnerable to ghost hacking.

The film features several characters from the preceding film, like Togusa, the most organic member of the team, and Batou, as the protagonists.

The special officers of Public Security Police Section 9 are investigating a cyborg corporation called LOCUS SOLUS[1] (from the equally named novel by French author Raymond Roussel) and its "Gainoids" - androids made in the form of young women, used as sex dolls - that killed their owners and, as soon as they realize they have a spirit, start to think of suicide.

Further, Oshii comments: "They want to become fully human -- but they can't. That dilemma becomes unbearable for them. The humans who made them are to blame. They try to make a doll that is as human as possible -- but they don't think of the consequences."

Dolls are an important motif in Innocence and have a spirit, but at the same time are not quite human. "But the other characters as well. Their movements are somewhat doll-like. Even their expressions are more doll-like than human" granted Oshii.

Batou's body is fully artificial: the only remnants left of his humanity, encased inside a titanium skull shell, are traces of his brain, and the memories of a woman called "The Major". In fact, Major Motoko Kusanagi is listed as missing, although government agents are still looking for her, as she has confidential knowledge on the Project 2501 in Ghost in the Shell.


Background information

Innocence it is Life

"... untested, but virtue is innocence tested and triumphant" (W.H. Griffith Thomas, 1962)


Innocence begins with a quotation of Mathias Villiers de l'Isle-Adam's Tomorrow's Eve (1886) and


"If our Gods and our hopes are nothing but scientific phenomena, then let us admit it must be said that our love is scientific as well."


The movie is filled with lot of references to fantasy, philosophy and Zen and faces aesthetic and moral questions.

It could be considers as a full quoted script with Buddha, Confucius, Descartes, the Old Testament, Saito Ryokuu, Max Weber, Jacob Grimm, Plato, John Milton, Zeami, Villiers de L'Isle-Adam and others.

The characters themself are literary referenced to "Tommorow's Eve" (The term android was first used in this book featuring a man-made human-like robot named Hadaly ) and "Locus Solus" or, more symbolically, like the Coronor Haraway to Donna Haraway ("A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century,")

It could prefigure a new century with people facing towards a humanity of hard disks and memories [2] when animate and inanimate started to merge in new forms like 'interconnected '"living dolls".

While pursuing the truth behind the crime incident that happened in the course of the movie, Batou and Togusa, flying to Etorofu, a special economic development zone, make the following observation: [3]

"If the substance of life is information, transmitted through genes, then society and culture are essentially immense information transmission systems, and the city, a huge external memory storage device."

On his narrative intentions Oshii comments: "for Innocence, I had a bigger budget than for Ghost in the Shell. I also had more time to prepare it. Yet despite the economic leeway, abundant details and orientations, it was still important to tell an intimate story. [...] Personally, I adore the quotes in the film. It was a real pleasure for me. The budget and work that went into it contributed to the high quality of imagery. The images had to be up to par, as rich as the visuals."

"This desire to include quotes by other authors came from Godard. The text is very important for a film, that I learned from him. It gives a certain richness to cinema because the visual is not all there is. Thanks to Godard, the spectator can concoct his own interpretation. [...] The image associated to the text corresponds to a unifying act that aims at renewing cinema, that lets it take on new dimensions.”

Kenji Kawai's technologic music greatly contributes to the film's futuristic sensation and reenforces the reminescence of Ghost in the Shell like in the opening scene echoing "birth of a cyborg" from the first piece.

Some others turn to more modern jazz fusion and fall in romance like the Masterpiece "Follow me" used in the famous trailer, which received a striking popularity by the fans of Oshii's movie.

Mamoru Oshii, while pretending to reactualize the romantic myth of the manufacture of a creature, which is at the same time human and artificial like in Frankenstein, is questioning on the becoming of Human Soul and leaves the traditional thematic of cyberpunk and science fiction for a more philosophical and religious one.

Oshii said the film was first inspired by bleak thoughts of economic recession and violent crime. He imagines a world where humans have been replaced by their virtual selves.

"Distinguishing the virtual from the real is a major error on the part of human beings. To me, the birth and death of a human being is already a virtual event," the 52-year-old director told a news conference on 2004 Cannes Film Festival.

"I think that accepting that what we are seeing is not real will open the doors of truth for mankind," he added.

Innocence achieves a unique spatial atmosphere, all its own, is also worthy of mention. Panoramic views are enveloped in orange light and deep haze. Sunlight seldom falls on Batou, who wanders in solitude at ground level, bathed in yellow light, red neon, and blue electric light, effects which enhance the movie's atmosphere of film noir beyond its obvious reference to Blade Runner.

Unlike with a filmed movie, the creators of an animated movie must envision and create all the detailed elements that make up a scene, and the movie comes to life. Innocence succeeds in this challenge with some weird 3D scenes softly integrated to 2D characters; but it is said that "in some scenes there was intentional direction from Oshii to make 3D environment look unreal to describe ghost-hack and such complicated concepts."

Oshii says: I enjoy making the world [of the film] as detailed as possible. I get absorbed in the finer points -- like what the back of a bottle label looks like when you see it through the glass [demonstrates with a bottle of mineral water]. That's very Japanese, I suppose. I want people to go back to the film again and again to pick up things they missed the first time.

The dog Gabriel, looking one more time like the only real being, makes an key appearance, like in many of Oshii's movies. A scene of Batou feeding his dog is echoing Ash in Avalon and Mamoru Oshii in his real life: " Batou is a reflection of my own thoughts and feelings. "Innocence" is a kind of autobiographical film in that way."

If that were not cryptic enough, he explained the reason why all his films feature a basset hound -- his faithful companion in real life.

"This body you see before you is an empty shell. The dog represents my body," said Oshii. "Humans can be free only if they free themselves from their body. When I am playing around with my dog, I forget that I am a human being and it's only then that I feel free."

Even if some of the characters from "The Ghost in the Shell" are present, Innocence goes far beyond the themes of electronic networks and human-machine technologies and remains more ambitious. The usual downbeat story line of Oshii's movies could perhaps restrict the audience to technology and anime fans.

Mamoru Oshii also joins his own reflexions about art and animation: "I think that Hollywood is relying more and more on 3D imaging like that of Shrek. The strength behind Japanese animation is based in the designers' pencil[4]. Even if he mixes 2D, 3D, and computer graphics, the foundation is still 2D. Only doing 3D does not interest me."

The animated drawing is undoubtedly the kind which allows, without obstacle, the figurative deformation of our imagery - especially the cathedral house in Shenzhen and the Chinese parade which will stay as one of the most amazing scenes in recent memory. The Nipponese anime however works, most of the time, according to laws of strict realism.

"The film is set in the future, but it's looking at present-day society. And as I said, there's an autobiographical element as well. I'm looking back at some of the things I liked as a child -- the 1950's cars and so on. Basically, I wanted to create a different world -- not a future world."

Cannes Film Festival

Innocence was one of the feature films in competition at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival.

Quotes

  • Extracts of Dialogues
    • Life and death come and go like marionettes dancing on a table. Once their strings are cut, they easily crumble.
    • Why are humans so obsessed with recreating themselves?
    • Let one walk alone, committing no sin, with few wishes, like an elephant in the forest.
  • Mamoru Oshii on his intentions:
    • "I'm happier if 10,000 people see the film 10 times each than if 1 million people see it once. I'm not making it for the general public, but for a core group of fans -- I hope it will make a big impression on them. If I can do that, I'm happy." (The Japan Times: March 17, 2004 full interview )
    • "This movie does not hold the view that the world revolves around the human race. Instead it concludes that all forms of life – humans, animals and robots – are equal. In this day and age when everything is uncertain, we should all think about what to value in life and how to coexist with others."
  • Mamoru Oshii on japanese concept of tamashi [spirit] and the Western concept of soul:
    • A soul is not something someone can just show you. But if you believe in it enough, want to see it enough, it will appear.
    • In the West, people don't believe animals have souls, do they? That's not true in Japan, though. I myself believe that dogs and cats have souls -- but that has nothing to do with a specific religion.
    • Children have similar feelings about dolls -- if they love a doll enough, they feel that it's alive. That feeling is universal. It's not something they're taught -- they just feel it somehow. It's not connected with any religious belief.


Books


Related sources:

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