The Red Spectacles
Art: the Japanese film The Red Spectacles directed by Mamoru Oshii
Experienced: On YouTube
I have returned from my writing slumber to tell you about this wonderfully bizarre film, The Red Spectacles. The film is directed my Mamoru Oshii, most famous for his adaptation of Ghost in the Shell, but don't go in expecting anything like that film. A closer inspection will reveal some parallel themes and motifs between the two films, but on a surface level, the two films feel completely different to experience.
The film follows Koichi, a man who, along with his two comrades, refused to give up their tactical gear--the Kerberos suits--after their unit was disbanded. He was forced to leave his comrades behind, vowing to come back, and three years later, he has returned to fulfill his promise. To say anything more of the plot would be to veer into speculation, considering the surreal nature of the film. Frankly, I don't even necessarily think that my plot description is accurate--it is merely the conceit through which the film onboards the viewer to its madness.
The film feels like if Jacob's Ladder was directed by a Japanese Charlie Chaplin. It is undeniably avant-garde, but not with the contemplative, quiet tone we tend to associate with that term. In fact, the film is downright goofy most of the time. The juxtaposition between heartfelt monologues in a dystopian sci-fi setting and the slapstick action running on Looney-Toons logic is bizarre and off-putting. Hard to believe that such a seemingly grounded film as Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade was born from the franchise this film started--and, somehow, Jin-Roh is the animated film!
It certainly took me a bit to get into this film. I found it hard to connect to the story or the characters, leaving me checking my watch more than I'd like. However, by the end, this film truly had won me over. The wild swings it takes are refreshing--they create an atmosphere and personality that is completely its own. Once the rhythm of its dream-logic clicked with me and I started to untangle its layers of artifice and metatexuality, I was entranced. Yes, I thought. This is the kind of movie I would like to make.
Perhaps not literally a film exactly like this--frankly, I don't think I could ever truly understand the strange mind from which this film sprang forth like a Bugs-Bunny Athena from Zeus' forehead (full of wisdom all the same)--but something with the same ambition and willingness to break with convention--to break with the illusion of reality--as this film, all in service of a strange but impactful narrative. I felt this film, even if I didn't fully understand it.