Last night we watched Ghost in the Shell (1995). Another movie that I’ve known about for years, but I’ve never watched until last night. And I genuinely regret not having seen this movie sooner! This movie is phenomenal. It’s a japanese anime movie, but the entire story is in the hour and a half that it takes to tell the tale. And it’s WORTH IT. It touches on themes of futurism, self-awareness, and existentialism. It makes you ponder, what is life, what is existence, and what is consciousness? As soon as the movie started, I was absolutely sucked in. From the moment it started til the moment it stopped, I didn’t want to look away. It was so great.
The animation in the movie is also absolutely mind blowing. If you’re a fan of animation at all, even though this movie released in 1995, it was all hand drawn, and I genuinely believe the animation studio was just showing off how great they were at what they did. For example, animating two characters talking in the foreground, while in the background a fish tank has fish swimming around in their traditional patterns, or having rain and wind pouring down on an infantry, while three different light sources are beaming upon the characters with shadows and light moving. It’s jaw dropping how beautiful this movie is. And the story is so good, and extremely well paced. With it’s topics of conversation, the concept of the movie, and how phenomenal the animation is, this movie is begging to be watched over and over again. This movie is pleading with you to think about the topics it brings up, and is longing for conversation around those topics. Again, I genuinely regret not having seen this movie sooner because I absolutely fell in love with it. Also, side note, this is NOT for kids. There’s a lot of action-based violence, a couple bloody scene, language, and a lot of nudity throughout the movie. If you’re not cool with those topics, you might want to pass. Otherwise, this is one of the best movies I’ve seen this year. Highly recommended.
I give this movie 5 out of 5 stars – You can see what I’m currently watching by following me on Letterboxd @ roberthawk
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