I went to see Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence last month at MoMA as part of their Future Imperfect: The Uncanny in Science Fiction film series. It is an anime film from 2004, directed by Mamoru Oshii, based on the manga by Shirow Masamune, and is a sequel to the classic anime film from 1995. I really liked it a lot, I was totally into the mixing of cyberpunk with noir aesthetics. I enjoyed how the film mixed hand-drawn animation with CGI, and had moody jazz music to set the atmosphere in the often rainy and dark city.
The basic plot was that androids created by a company as girlish-looking sex dolls were intentionally self-destructing and killing their masters, and a pair of cops, a human and a cyborg, are assigned to the case. Meanwhile, the heroine of the first film, Major Motoko Kusanagi, has now assimilated into technology as a sort of "ghost," where her spirit lives on, with communication with the cyborg cop.
The story mostly centers on the cyborg cop, Batou, as he wrestles with both his humanity and his cybernetic technology, and he resembled Dolph Lundgren to me. And though the story takes place in Hong Kong 2032, the human cop, Togusa, was sporting an 80's mullet, it was a little funny to me.
The film explores themes of humanity, death, what it means to be alive or "real" as human or otherwise, and questioning reality. It was really fascinating and interesting to watch, and I was happy to have spent my evening watching this trippy film.
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