Adolescent, borderline puerile philosophy
People who hail this film as 'deep' need to calmly rethink their notion of what it means to be human. If anything, this film reminded me of a 'quote journal' that a friend used to keep: it was a collection of famous sayings the person would write down.
Every single quote in the movie came from the mouth of a person like you or me, and is built from words that other peopoe like your or me agreed to use to communicate to one another. The whole mirrors thing...rubbish. Batou's brother failing in the search for meaning? Who hasn't heard that one before? The film seems so eager to say something that it forgets the true gem of humanity/life is communication itself. Philosophy, my donkey. =] The whole 'aemaeth' 'maeth' trick carries about the same philosophical signifigance as a baseball manager's signs. Don't think so? Both cases are based on premeditated/pre-organized 'signs' designed to communicate meaning. We, the audience, shouldn't confuse the deus ex machina of the major's hacking talent and her choice of signal to Batou to be anything more than that. If the major was able to send her signal undetected in the first place, she could have just as well shown Batou a big damn banner reading: Congratulations! It's A...Trap! If Kim couldn't stop whatever the major did anyhow, why bother with sending a 'subtle' tipoff? Extending some credit to Oshii, he has the major insert herself and Batou's dog in the 'hint'; I'll give Oshii the benefit of the doubt and say that he was making a commentary on what gives Batou a 'reason to exist', aka the dog and contact with the major, and the major using the chance to share a bit of an intimate moment with Batou. The whole 'amaeth' 'maeth' thing is just a thing that some guy made up in some other story - great literary work or not - made up and then requisitioned for use as a simple visual signal from one cop to another.
Basically, the danger in buying into and heralding such philosophizing is that you're so dazzled and awed, too busy applauding the creator for using it (and to some extent, yourself for 'getting' it) You're too busy nodding your head or comtemplating it to see that in reality, the world and the universe are far too big to be encapsulated in quotes (self-congratulatory, or existential crying-out, or emotionally stirring, or whatever kind) - quotes built from nouns and verbs that we humans agreed on. Put your Monty Python hat on and imagine Eric Idle and John Cleese engaged in the following conversation:
- Ok, when I say "Green," it means 'go.
- Green means go. Got it.
- Hey...
- What.
- You fancy this'll catch on?
- What do you mean?
- This whole green means go thing. You know, green...lush leaves, fertile grass, garden of eden...
- You fancy anybody'll give a @#$%?
- Well...someone might.
- You're right, let's just go with it.
It might be a clumsy example but it makes the point in its own blunt way: Anything that comes from the mind of a human can by nature only be an observation. No such thing can be a truth except amongst other human beings. To presume anything as a deep universal truth is akin to walking into a house that someone else built with their own two hands and plopping yourself down on the couch and spewing commentary on the decor. Who asked you? Compared to the intricacy of fabric of the universe, human speech/communication is about as delicate and ingenious as a dixie-cup-string phone. But hey, it works. And we get by. But the moment you start saying hey-we're-so-deep-aren't-we-great, that's the moment you start to stagnate, and potentially lose the drive to pass the deep and go for things deeper still. That's why the art universally regarded as 'best' usually accomplishes two things: excellence in execution, and unspoken acknowledgement of the 'unattainable' (in other words, humility and the longing for things greater still). This is where Innocence loses its footing with many viewers: the second anyone catches a whiff of pretension, they back away with their palms held out: No, thanks, man. I gave at the office. The simple reason is that we're built to detect someone who thinks they've got it all figured out. Pretension is the death-cologne of those who've lost a bit of their humility/humanity and who think they have it all figured out but in reality have stalled at some desert crossroads along the drive for bigger and better things.
Remember, everything in this movie - quotes and imagery and all, and original or not - *everything* in the picture was filtered through the mind of one man: to hail any of it as deep or meaningful is a dangerous and witless thing to do. Picture every piece of 'significant' knowledge or 'enlightenment' ever obtained in this world and imagine it as the cottage-cheese sludge being funneled through one man's mind. Now picture the lower tip of the funnel. Narrow, isn't it? I'm not saying that Oshii is narrow-minded; all of us make everyday decisions in the same way, artists included - you funnel and filter out the 'junk' and go for what you have to. But don't forget that the real picture of humanity is the 'sludge', and how each and every person goes through it looking for meaning and occasionally getting stuck. And once you find what works for you, you go with it and grow with it (usually into adulthood.)
That's why Innocence's philosophizing is borderline adolescent and why many people criticize the film's 'pretension': all of its ponderings are either things that *every* human being does, or Oshii's hand-picked (make no mistake about that) sayings. Those types of obsevations are what most human beings grow out of by their twenties. Sure, who wouldn't like the time to lay or mope around pondering the human condition: most of us lack the discipline or intellect to bother with it, or the talent and flair to express what we've found in a way that appeals to the slovenly masses - hence artists like Oshii find work. Bottom line, if you've read this far, I hope you've done away with the notion that Innocence - and films like it - are anything more than beautifully packaged personal quote journals.