hontou ni sou omou?

This would be my fourth time watching Innocence but the first two were with a fansub (I forget which) and the third time on my tiny 17-inch room TV on a R2 DVD (no subs T_T). Had promised myself to see it in a movie theatre if I ever got the chance. As luck would have it, GITS: Innocence was screening at just one screen in central London.

And despite having seen it three times already, I thought this was my most enjoyable viewing thus far and not just because of the full cinema experience. I also understood the plot much better as I was now quite familiar with the story and the official sub-titles resolved most of my remaining puzzlement arising from the fansub. Methinks due to the complexity of the ideas in GITS, one would probably need JLPT Level 1 at least to be able to understand what’s going on, never mind quibbling over minor points of interpretation. IMHO so far only LMF has been able to produce superb quality subs for GITS:SAC and SAC 2nd Gig.

One thing that got cleared up straight away for me was right in the first five minutes after Batou enters the alley with the two dead policemen and the first gynoid. The elder detective was saying that they should not go in together with Batou as it’s rumoured that his bad luck is contagious (a reference to Motoko’s apparent demise in the first movie?).

Another major area of confusion that got resolved was Aramaki’s conversation with Togusa before he headed out to the Yakuza den with Batou in which the Section 9 Chief told Togusa that part of his job was to monitor Batou’s emotional state because he had started to display behaviour like the Major’s before her disappearance; behaviour described he as “I walk alone, and do no evil, with few desires, like an elephant in the forest.” Motoko uses this to describe her own current mental / emotional state at the end of the movie. Later, in the car, Batou grumbled about how the authorities were still desperately trying to find the Major, mainly because they wanted to recover her memories - which were all classified government property as she had signed over everything in return for her state-of-the-art shell.

One point of dissatisfaction about the subbing was for the Chinese poem used by Kim the hacker and which is another motif in the movie related to the doll theme. I felt that the last two lines were translated rather too literally - when the marionette’s strings are cut, it collapses. My own interpretation (heavily influenced by a dinner discussion of that poem with my parents who both were both schooled in classical Chinese poetry) is in my older post but to reiterate - there is an element of stylishness, liberation and transcendence even as the marionette collapses.

London newspaper reviewers have generally said "Marvellous art, effects, music but nevermind the plot." Being a fan, I am rather peeved at their condenscending vacuity - just because they cannot understand the plot does not mean there isn’t one. There is a linear backbone which is not hard to follow, with good sub-titles, and the philosophizing about dolls has a direct bearing on understanding the dilemmas of the characters. In any case, I enjoyed it very much. ^_^