Review of Ghost in the Shell (1995) by Stefan B — 02 Mar 2010

Itâ??s certainly a film that you would have to bring your mind to. And even then you gain much more the second time viewing it. The year is 2029, and a group of government agents track down the mysterious Puppet Master hacking various cyborgs. Oshii chooses a gritty, high-contrast look for this film. The detail and color selections in the environments and mechanics help convey a sense of gritty â??realityâ?? in the picture. Looking at the art work, one can see where the Wachowski Brothers got their inspiration for The Matrix.

The script balances itâ??s crime-drama main plot with an intellectual B-plot, and ties it up neatly in the end using a lot of slightly obscure visual metaphors with both the human body, various forms of sculptural/illustrative art, and images from the fossil record. (Wha--?) Even with the metaphors, one might have to do a bit of research into certain subjects in order to understand the full impact of their meaning, hense bordering on becoming pretentious. That being said, I was surprisingly familiar lot of the stuff they were referencing with the metaphors first time around, mainly due to my academic interests in middle-school. So whereas I can see how it might be pretentious to some audiences, I understood it. And even then, if youâ??ve watched enough anime or even notice neighboring religions, you probably have already seen or heard of a â??Tree of Lifeâ?? several times.

Due to such elements it's probably not an widely marketable film in the end, but also in the end I rather enjoyed it.