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I don't pretend for an instant to understand everything that is going on in Mamoru Oshii's convoluted, complex and just plain baffling sequel to his 1995 anime masterpiece, Ghost In The Shell.
And Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence, which appeared at this year's Toronto filmfest in Midnight Madness, is no masterpiece. It is even mildly disappointing, given the high standards Oshii set originally. But the sequel should not be dismissed, and won't be by hardcore anime fans.
Oshii is obviously still struggling to define the nature of humanity in his science-fiction, which is a film rendering of the manga comic book by Shirow Masamune. This is a serious quest and Innocence is a very serious film, not a mainstream entertainment and certainly not a cartoon.
It should be emphasized that, contrary to traditions in Hollywood, many Japanese animated films are intended primarily or even exclusively for adults, not for children. While Innocence is rated G in Ontario, despite its violence, I would not recommend it as family fare.
The story, which has its roots in the post-nuclear holocaust era of Japan in the aftermath of World War II, is set in 2032. At this point in the evolution of a future shock world of mixed humans and cyborgs, the line between what is human and what is machine has blurred so dramatically that even the definition of a real human is in peril -- and could lead to tragedy.
There are hybrids with varying degress of human tissue and brain matter. And there are pure mechanical beings, including pleasure dolls.
There are also malfunctioning androids who have a nasty habit of going on killing sprees. They have to be hunted down and exterminated by cynical cops.
The traces of humanity that remain in some cyborgs are often embodied in something as simple and elegant as befriending a pet dog -- one of the profound subplots in the film (in life, Oshii is obsessed with the relationship between man and dog). So there are passages in the film that are beautifully personal and very real.
But the next minute we could be hurtling across a mechanical landscape in a train that is bound for nowhere -- and everywhere -- and who cares?
So the film veers wildly between the known and the otherworldly. The transitions are mysterious and perplexing as if we are to devine meaning from sensation, either visually or from Kenji Kawai's relentless music.
At the same time, compared to many anime films, Oshii's anime style is still different, an intoxicating blend of mechanical and organic, like his characters. Even when meaning eludes us, the show is mesmerizing.
(This film is rated G)