A little bit about Akira. This was Katsuhiro Otomo's first big work and Akira is often sited at the first "grown up" animated feature. It broke many animation barriers namely the extensive use of animation cels giving the film fluid motion throughout.
Overall, I thought it was enjoyable, creative and entertaingly graphic. I mean, when people died in this movie they DIED in only the way anime characters can. I had actually taken a class earlier this summer called "Literature and Society: From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima" in which we dealt with past relationships between the US and Japan, the bombings of Pearl Harbor, the atom bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and just WWII on the Pacific front in general. The class was heavily geared toward the Japanese view (which makes sense since we mostly learn about the American view in school) which helped me gain insight to what the overall political message of Akira was. Especially since the movie begins with Tokyo 1988 and watching another seemingly atom bomb (ends up being Akira) go off in the city. In which Neo-Tokyo is built on a man-made island in Tokyo Bay.
I think the part that was most sad to me was taking these children (the Espers) to be used as experiments. For me it was like reading about the hibakusha (or the survivors of the atom bombs in Japan). In the most critical stages of recovery (mostly the time right after the bombs), the hibakusha were left with little care were more monitored to see what kinds of effects were being progressed on their bodies leaving many scarred or dieing. Like the children in Akira who lost their physical youth but are given a child's sanctuary within a laboratory.
Moving on...
So after getting bombarded with allergies in the parking booth I turned on The Hurt Locker. Wow is that movie intense. I didn't end up finishing it last night. I just got to the part where they find the little boy with the bomb in his body.
This is the conclusion I've come up with: If you're part of a bomb unit in the armed forces, you have to be a little bit crazy in your head. Or at least that's what I get from Jeremy Renner's character. But wow... what a terrifying and intense job.
I'm usually not one to sit down and watch war films, but this one made the exception purely because it's the movie that got Kathryn Bigelow her first Academy Award for Best Director - the first by a woman.
Truly an inspiration. Usually when I watch movies by myself I don't really think about the technical, theological motives of the movie. However, I really tried in this one. I felt that Bigelow's use of in/out focus, quick cuts, and variety of long/medium/close shots really added to the intensity of the moments. All the above also portrayed the mentality of each soldier well. Sanborn's demeanor is calm and when he is looking through the sniper telescope thingy it really showed. I especially liked the angle looking straight at him through the telescope. Eldridge is kind of jittery and his angles are a lot of up and downs and shots at him so you can't tell if he's ready to take a bullet or not. Lastly, James is the crazy like one and while he is defusing bombs that's when we get a lot of quick cuts of his working hands, his sweating head, or whatever he is looking at.
Overall, I'm enjoying the movie (oh jeeze, the door behind me slammed shut because of the wind going through the house and I jumped about 3 feet). I can't wait to finish it tonight.
If you have seen one or both of the movies please let me know what you think!!
No comments:
Post a Comment