Peace is War and War is Peace

In the film Patlabor 2, police officials get caught up in a struggle of authority between civil and military levels of power, during a terrorist attack. The film’s director Mamoru Oshii takes us on a journey of theoretical mind games in which he uses the antagonist Tsuge, a former Japanese military hero turned rogue, to create chaos against his own country in order for political change to occur and a new form of peace to be established. Society often looks highly upon the idea that there is such a concept as global peace; however in “Patlabor 2” Oshii metaphorically counters this idea with a theory that war is peace and peace is war, that you must have one in order to have the other. This theory goes against traditional theory that peace is accomplished by the idea that war is non-existent; Oshii uses various situations and characters in Patlabor 2 to convince his audience that “war is so called peace, and so called peace is the dormant seed in every war.” We can see evidence in both the film and political theory that supports Oshii’s theory that war and peace coincide. In the film we see Oshii use characters as a main way to depict his theories through dialogue of Arakawa and Captain Gota, as well as the character development of Tsuge. We will also be comparing the theory of Immanuel Kant with the theories/ideas presented in Patlabor 2, in order to solidify Oshii’s theory. Throughout this paper we will discuss the issues of war and peace and how they coincide with each other, and whether or not there is such a thing as a just war and an unjust peace.

War and peace are two very different things when compared with each other, the idea of peace does not usually mesh well with the idea of war; however the idea that war and peace must occur and coincide together is not an idea/theory that is widely accepted by the norm of people, because peace is usually regarded as the result of the absence of war, and war is usually regarded as the action that prevents peace. Oshii portrays his theory that war and peace are very similar and in many ways coincide with each other. We see this many times throughout the film, however one scene specifically provides dialogue that provides the viewer with evidence that war and peace are results of each other; the scene is between Arakawa and Gota when they are on the boat dock discussing the actual thing they are trying to protect:

Arakawa: “We’re a rich country. And what is our wealth built on? The bloody corpses in all these wars. They’re the foundation of our peace. We now put the same effort into indifference that our parents put into war. Other countries comfortably far away pay the price for our prosperous peace. We’ve learned very well how to ignore their suffering.”

Arakawa’s dialogue with Gota portrays a very interesting idea that peace is built on the results of war, and that the reason they have peace within their country is because there are foreign nations fighting wars in order for them to maintain their peaceful way of living; this compliments Oshii’s theory very well in which he shows his audience through this dialogue that peace is not the absence of war, but in fact the result of war. I believe that Oshii uses this dialogue as a pivotal point to show the audience that peace is built because of war; Arakawa clearly states that peace is built on the bloody corpses of war; which gives the audience an insight on what Oshii really feels about the issue of peace. The dialogue is almost a metaphorical way of portraying Oshii’s belief that peace is not always a good thing, that there could be a peace that is unjust; and that unjust peace is the direct result of a war that occurred for the wrong reasons such as: for wealth, natural resources, land, etc. Another quote from the same dialogue specifically targets the idea of just wars versus an unjust peace:

Captain Gota: “And yet it seems to me that the line between a just war and a unjust peace is very faint indeed. If the just war is a lie, is the unjust peace less of a lie? We are told there is peace but we look around us and even if we cannot give it words our lives tell us we cannot believe what we are being told. In the end every war gives way to peace so-called, and every so-called peace is the dormant seed of war.”

Once again Arakawa’s dialogue with Gota shows Oshii’s theory that war and peace coincide with each other, that every form of peace is a result of war and every war is the result of some pursuit of peace. In this portion of the dialogue Oshii presents a new idea within his theory, the idea of whether or not a just peace is actually possible. I think that this part of his theory is very interesting because society views all forms of peace as a positive and just thing; however according to Oshii all peace is the result of every war, so does that imply that every war is just? This scene is also the first time the audience is introduced to the idea that although Japan is not in war its peace is almost fake and unjust as a result of the sovereign rule of the U.S. (result of WWII). I believe that Oshii uses Tsuge’s character to answer that question in which he uses his experiences in the peacekeeping of southeast Asia (beginning scene of the film) to show his viewers what a unjust war is. I believe the opening scene depicts an unjust war. In the opening scene of Patlabor 2 Tsuge leads a platoon of Japanese labors on patrol Southeast Asia; shortly into the scene they were attacked by enemies and could not defend themselves because of direct orders from the UN, which led to the massacre of Tsuge’s men. The reason why Tsuge’s platoon could not fire back and defend themselves against an attacking enemy was a direct result of Japan’s actions during World War II. After World War II the US rewrote Japan’s constitution in which it stated that the nation could not have an organized army and could not participate in combat against other nations. This change in their constitution led to the unjust slaughter of Tsuge’s platoon; Oshii uses this incident as a pivotal way to confirm his theory by showing that peace is always a good thing, but it is not always a result of a just war. (“Peace and War from Patlabor 2”, “Japan after World War II”).

Oshii uses the main antagonist, Yukihito Tsuge, as one of his metaphorical portrayals of peace and war coinciding. The character of Yukihito Tsuge is a rogue ex-lieutenant colonel who went missing after his UN Labor platoon was attacked by armed guerrillas in the Southeast Asian forests (first scene of the film); he plotted the terrorist attacks that occurred during the film which caused the military chaos. Oshii uses Tsuge’s character as a vessel to portray this idea/theory that peace stems from war; Tsuge is the terrorist that wages internal war with his own country (Japan) in order to gain peace within him, and to create a political system that is beneficial to Japan.


(Figure 1)

Tsuge’s bitterness and desire for revenge drives him to create war; however when we analyze his character more we realize that Tsuge is not a villain in which he is naturally evil or that he hates Japan, but rather that he felt like he was done a disservice/he was betrayed by his own country, so in order to regain peace within himself for the death of his platoon he seeks revenge by attacking the soil of the authority that could have saved his men. The reason for Tsuge’s revenge can be explained in two parts; the first is the responsibility his character feels for the death of his platoon, Tsuge feels obligated to avenge the deaths of his platoon, because he felt that he should have given them the right to defend themselves against enemy attacks; the second is the unjust political rule that didn’t allow his men to protect themselves when they really needed to (result of the new constitution of Japan).

The experiences that Tsuge endured would confirm Oshii’s theory that any kind of peace just or unjust is a result of war, and that peace and war are the result of each other. Tsuge believes that the only way for Japan to understand that they need to change their constitution to better their nation is to experience the same thing he and his platoon experienced; this is the underlying reason why he wages war on his own country. Arakawa: “Tsuge's putting us in the same position he was in three years ago: no backup. No rules of engagement. That's how bitter he is.” Tsuge believed that in order for Japan to understand that it living in an unjust peace and a peace that could be threatened without defense, he literally showed them through terrorist attacks that they needed a way to defend themselves, they needed an organized army.


(Figure 2)

At this point in the movie Japan was defenseless, because they couldn’t engage in any form of war/combat with anyone outside of their own country; this is why Tsuge uses an American fighter plane to cause confusion and chaos amongst civil and military officials. Tsuge uses these terrorist attacks to show Japan that they are v[ul]nerable unless they install a form of defense; the reaction he gets is obviously portrayed in a negative way, because it is chaotic. However in the end the audience gets an idea of what Oshii uses Tsuge’s character for. Although Tsuge put Japan under high alert and chaos it was meant as more of a wake-up call to military and political officials; Tsuge uses an American fighter plane to show that Japans security is compromised by its alliance with the U.S. and is a direct result of Japan's security and safety being undermined by the U.S. Tsuge makes a point to civil and military officials that if they don’t want to see innocent lives lost then they need to change the no military engagement rule in the new form of rule. Tsuge uses this dramatic chaos to provide a political stance that would provide a better and safer Japan for the future. Oshii uses Tsuge as an antagonist, but he truly serves as an undercover protagonist, because the normal reaction of hatred towards a terrorist is not actively present, because he reveals Tsuge’s true desire. Tsuge: “Perhaps there is a part of me that wants to see a little more.” This was Tsuge’s answer to the pilot that asked him why he didn’t kill himself after all the chaos he caused. Oshii uses Tsuge’s answer to show the audience that Tsuge’s motives were to create a protected Japan, a Japan that lived off a just peace instead of an unjust war (Anderson 84).

Oshii uses Patlabor 2 into a debate amongst viewers through the topic of peace and war coinciding, and whether or not there is such a thing as a just peace. This topic can be turned into a debate, because viewers are shown both sides of the coin. On one hand it is hard not to be on the side of the UN, because there needs to be a form of global peacekeeping in order to prevent another world war from occurring; however you can’t help but sympathize with Tsuge and his goal to restore Japan to its former glory, because every country needs to have the right to defend itself, because without sovereignty over your own nation you depend on the judgment of other nations for the peace and lives of your people. The drama Oshii creates through this debate is clear in which the audience does not know exactly which side is right and which side is wrong, because although the initial response would be to side with the UN, however seeing Tsuge’s point of view makes you question whether or not the peacekeeping and restrictions the UN and US placed on Japan was legitimate or even in the benefit of the Japan as a nation.

Oshii uses a couple of scenes to reveal this debate, specifically the scene in the control room where the Japanese are confused on whether the not the American plane in pursuit is theirs or not. This scene shows that Japan was in a state of confusion, which resulted from the restrictions put on them by the U.S. They had no identity anymore and didn’t even know what planes belonged to them and what didn’t belonged to them; this shows the audience’s first hesitation on the legitimacy of Japanese defense (the exact thing Tsuge eventually tries to fix); this scene confirms the one side of the coin that supports Tsuge’s terrorist attacks in which Japan needs to break away from UN/US control in order to have a legitimate defense and maintain a just peace. A scene that Oshii uses to show the other side of the coin is the opening scene when Tsuge’s platoon comes under attack, this scene reveals the process in which the UN operates in which attacking back is the second option and waiting for reinforcements and confirmation that it is okay to attack should be the priority. The argument that Oshii provides with the drama of the two scenes is that, should global peace be considered just over an unjust war. The most pivotal scene that wraps the two together would have to be when Tsuge is arrested in the chopper and he reveals that he wants to see the changes Japan makes, because of all the chaos he caused, I believe Oshii solves this debate for us by showing his audience that peace is a result of war and not every peace is just and not every war is unjust. It can be argued over and over what Tsuge did was wrong, however if the end result turned out to help the nation of Japan, can anyone say that it was truly unjust?

Once Tsuge takes his actions against Japan, the nation as a whole is thrown into this political confusion between military and civil officials in which they have no idea whether or not the American aircraft was theirs or was this a terrorist attack from the U.S. Oshii shows chaos and panic in many ways, from the levels of civil power to the levels of military power; Oshii portrays Japan as a nation that was so consumed in their unjust peace that acknowledging an attack on their soil was unthinkable (think how the US felt after 9/11). The reactions from the characters of the film truly portray Tsuge’s actions as positive rather negative, but only after they understand Tsuge’s true motive for his terrorist attacks. Tsuge’s motives were to help Japan realize that they were living in an unjust peace and that in order for them to truly maintain a just peace they must come out of the shadow the U.S. and become a sovereign state again, with their own army and unique constitution. The audience can tell that Tsuge becomes an unordinary antagonist through Oshii’s artistic portrayal of certain scenes that Tsuge is a part of; one specific scene is when he is getting arrested and all the birds fly up in the air. This can be seen as a burden being lifted off of Tsuge in which the birds represent revenge and burden and when his task is finally done and the military and civil authority finally realize his motives the birds fly away as if his burden was gone and he is now at peace. Oshii uses this scene as a way to express his agreement Tsuge’s actions and that he acknowledges that his terrorist actions may have been wrong, but his ideology and belief that Japan needed to change the way they govern themselves is correct. Oshii uses the character of Shinobu Nagumo, a former colleague of Tsuge, to show that the characters in the film understand why he did it, but have to punish his actions because it was still wrong. The audience can see the sadness of Nagumo as she arrests Tsuge, because she knows he is right in the way he wants to better Japan, it was just the way he did it in gives her no choice as a police officer, but to put him under arrest.

The topic of an unjust peace and a just war is a topic brought up many times throughout this essay as well as seen many times throughout the film Patlabor 2; however what real evidence do we have to ensure us that Oshii’s theory is even a relevant theory? Philosopher Immanuel Kant believed in a similar theory to Oshii in which he believed that “a war is only won only by the side that is comprehensively stronger, and since victory and defeat depend solely on relative power, reason declares that war as a procedure for determining rights is absolutely condemned.” If the reason of war is already condemned before it has started then does it not make it right to wage war on a country you already know you can defeat? Kant questions the legitimacy of war and the reasoning behind it; Kant brings up a valid point throughout his writings in which he theorizes that if nations waged war against a nation they knew they could already defeat, then would it not be easier just to solve their disputes in a court of law, and was actual war really necessary? Kant and Oshii’s theory do not stray far from each other; in another part of Kant’s writing he answers his question on the legitimacy of waging war with the idea that war is necessary in order to maintain peace: “asserting that war, not only peace, is absolutely necessary, since war is linked with peace and the moral sanity of a people, he claims that perpetual peace would reduce all peoples perpetual silence”; this quote can confirm Oshii’s theory that they must exist together in order to exist at all. Kant believed that people naturally have different opinions and that war is used to express these opinions, and in order for just peace to truly occur we must go to war to make sure that the opinions of a people is heard and executed.

In Patlabor 2, we can see Kant’s philosophy relevant through the actions of Tsuge in which he felt that war was necessary in order to achieve peace; creating chaos in Japan was the underlying purpose to show that the Nation was vulnerable and that they needed to become their own sovereign nation. During post-world war II Japan was taken over by the U.S. in more ways then one, the U.S. set up military posts on Japanese soil, assimilated them to the U.S. culture, created a new constitution for them, and rebuilt and ran their country as if it was the United States. Tsuge’s actions against Japan can be seen as a people’s voice being heard through war. It is no secret that even though the U.S. was part of the reason of the destruction and reconstruction of Japan, that the way they did it was not exactly to the Japanese liking. Patlabor 2, compliments Kant’s theory really well; however there are aspects of the film that do not necessarily agree completely with his theory; Kant believed that war was necessary to keep peace amongst a people, because war acts as the voice of opinion for a people, however in Patlabor 2, Oshii shows that peace is obtained by being a sovereign nation, it is once again showed through Tsuge’s ideology that if Japan were to maintain some form of peace and be in war they must be sovereign in order to carry out their own ambitions instead of another nations (Hoffe 156, 192).

In conclusion, Oshii metaphorically theorizes that peace and war whether just or unjust must exist with each other, that in order for one to occur the other must as well. We see this theory being portrayed through the dialogue of Arakawa and Captain Gota and the character development of Tsuge; we also can confirm that Oshii’s theory is relevant because it is similar to that of philosopher Immanuel Kant. After researching the topic of peace and war, I can confidently conclude that the idea of peace can only exist as a result of war; I conclude this because we see through many modern day events such as 9/11 that peace comes as a result of war; when a nation is put under chaos and answers back with a resolution it maintains its peace once again. I understand and agree with Kant’s philosophy that war serves as a reality check amongst a people, because sometimes it takes war to show what peace really is, and whether or not a nation has obtained it. Oshii uses Tsuge’s actions of terrorism to portray Japan in a light that many didn’t really see, in which they were at peace, because they were no longer in war, however they lived in an unjust peace, because they were being controlled by the U.S. Oshii showed that sovereignty is an important part of obtaining a just peace in which he uses Tsuge to show that being controlled by another nation can result in a form of peace, but when you have no control of your own state, then this peace is irrelevant because when you are attacked and when you need to defend yourself, you have no say in it. Patlabor 2 provides viewers with an intellectual challenge of norms and average societal thinking, in which it challenges its viewers to think outside of the box, and to focus on whether or not violence (war) is the result of peace, and peace is the underlying creation of war; regardless if it is the type of war that is seen on TV between militaries, or the war with self revenge, every type of war is in the pursuit of some sort of peace, and every type of peace exists because of some action of war.



BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anderson, Mark. "Oshii Mamoru's Patlabor 2: Terror, Theatricality, and Exceptions That Prove the Rule." (2009): 75-109. Web. 2 June 2011.

Bolton, Christopher, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, and Takayuki Tatsumi. "Patlabor 2 and the Phenomenology of Anime." Robot Ghosts and Wired Dreams: Japanese Science Fiction from Origins to Anime. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2007. Print.

Höffe, Otfried. Kant's Cosmopolitan Theory of Law and Peace. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006. Print.

Market, Mark T. "Peace and War from Patlabor 2 « The Critical Thinker(tm)." Web. 1 May 2011. .

Patlabor 2. Dir. Mamoru Oshii. 1993. DVD.

The Sense of History amid Absence of Information about History

History makes a person who they are and in the absence of history, a person succumbs to alienation. In the movie Sky Crawlers by Mamoru Oshii, many of the characters, categorized as “kildren,” are not born into the world as individuals but as duplicates of a previous person. Each created character does not have a history or background to relate to and thus come into the air base an alien. They live repetitious lives, flying, killing, and then eventually dying.

They are provided basic fixed memories but in reality they have no hard evidence that they are individuals. Although every character has their own attributes and specific customs that are carried on even after death, without the knowledge of history, they are doomed to be lost within the animosity of their lack of information. Evidence of this can be seen with a character that was supposedly killed in an air battle but then is replaced with a similar character attributing the same habits as the previous character. This new person has similar features, habits, and style putting into question, “are we really individuals and to what extent?” It’s in this way that creates a need for the past to be felt by the characters, which intrigues us, the viewers, to want to understand what has happened.

While on the subject of history and how there is a need for the past, within the movie there is a similar negligence of historic information as Oshii only provides many instances of hints and clues that paint the big picture. Throughout the movie very limited information is provided to us about the main story. We, as the viewers, are required to infer the story behind the scene. It’s almost as if we are put in the position of the kildren and are made to experience all that a kildren would experience. There is no point within the movie that explains exactly what has happened previously, but only moments in which the characters’ experience to allow us to have our own assumptions of what had happened. Usually nothing is perfectly stated out in the open about what had happened, and in the times that something is stated, we do not know if it is the real truth or just the information from a third party. Without the experience provided by the character’s own history, it is not possible to be sure if the information given is supposed to be actual truth or a diluted truth. Since the main characters in the movie have no history, they have a need of history which causes the viewers to be intrigued into what had happened in their past.

In the beginning of the film, there is a scene where Yuichi, the main flier pilot who had just entered the base has a number of questions about past events and why things are the way they are. “Who was the previous owner of the plane? Where did he go? Why was he transferred out? Did he die? When taking over a plane, surely it’s normal to have contact with the previous pilot? Are you a kildren?” Yuichi has a need to know what had previously happened on the base, and we as the viewers, are intrigued by how this story is being told. We are put into the position of Yuichi, being weary of asking the wrong questions and getting in trouble, but still having the desire to know more. Another scene which shows a need for the past is when Kusanagi, presumed the most knowledgeable and experienced of the kildren, seems depressed and lost. It is as seen when she recollects old memories, which have no assurance of reality, but causes her to reminisce. The scene in which I am referring to is when she goes into Yuichi’s room and has a remorseful look on her face as she smells Yuichi’s scent on his bed and remembers a different time. In the viewer’s eyes, we are unable to understand anything, but are able to see the residue of history left behind and experienced by Kusanagi.


(Figure 1)

Kusanagi’s sufferage is further shown when she goes into the town to have fun. Kusanagi and Yuichi eats dinner together and we find that she’s a had a bit too much to drink and can’t really walk straight. Yuichi helps Kusanagi walk and she points a gun to his head asking “Do you want me to kill you? Or would you grant me death? Otherwise we’ll be like this forever.” In this line, it seems as though she’s being tortured by the burden of knowledge which is making her suffer, but what exactly this suffering is, is unknown to Yuichi and the viewers. Progressing a bit further into the movie, Mitsuya is with Yuichi in his room and she talk of how things are. She then proceeds to break down from her lack of history. She cries and confesses to Yuichi that she has “no sense of solidity at all” and that everything she knows could be lie. She asks out loud, “How do you all stay in control of your feelings? How exactly do you connect your endlessly repeating life with your memories of the past?” She goes on to theorize that they’ve “probably become forgetful, hazy feelings, as if you’re watching a dream, protecting your mind.” She knows of no reliable past and has no evidence that she was born or grew up.


(Figure 2)

With this lack of history she then goes on to threaten Kusanagi holding her at gun point in hopes of ending the tormented loop. It’s in this scene that I feel as though it shows how far a person is willing to go if they are driven by the need to know their history and backed into a corner of uncertainty. Oshii creates these kildren, without a sense of history, causing characters to react through destructive and self-destructive actions. This includes smoking, homicide, and unquestioningly going into war.

A need for the past to be felt by the characters is created, which intrigues us, the viewers, to want to understand what has happened. None of the kildren are born with the knowledge of their past lives. All they have is the information given by the people around them which gives them a compilation of their own history, but nothing which can be compared to their own experience. Though through this way, they are able to create a first time experience, building on the character’s own primary past experiences. With the absence of information, one only has the sense of history, which will present those without a history a presence of alienation. Now, knowing the characters are without a solid history, I believe that their only option is to create history in the present. It is only in this way that they are able to have a history, which is to be able to make it in the moment. They must use all the information provided as they live now, in their current life, to create real memories in order for it to become their history. This seems like the only truth that they are able to live by.

“Sky Crawlers neglects to have a lot of definitive information about the history. The director, Oshii, has a lot of inferences into what might have happened in the past, but nothing can be directly known that it had happened. Instead we are given some information in order to make our own assumptions. As the movie starts out we are shown a fierce sky battle with names such as “Teacher” thrown out to us. We are unaware of who these people are, why they are fighting, and who are the good guys and bad guys. We are neglected a lot of information, which eventually we find the answers to our questions. When Yuichi first comes in contact with Kusanagi, he asks her a lot of questions, which to our dismay, do not receive any answers. It is then seen throughout the movie that these questions are slowly answered by inferences from different sources. We again are able to see the absence of information to the characters and viewers. A big neglect of information is the “kildren” characters. Throughout the movie, they are mentioned multiple times, but Oshii wanted the viewers to figure it out with many hints and doesn’t allow us to have more information until the end into what they really are, although we still don’t have an exact description of what they are. What we have is more of an idea of what the kildren are, rather than knowledge of exactly what they are. The movie lacks a lot of information, which forces the viewers to think and come up with our own answers to the questions while giving us pieces of information along the way.

A main distinct characteristic of the movie which I had noticed is the background music, or should I say the lack of background music. In the movie, background music seems to play sporadically throughout the movie. Although it isn’t unusual to have music play in the background of a movie, I had noticed that it only played in certain instances and only plays for a short duration. In this way, I took a bit of time and looked at the scenes and believe that the background music is a reflectance of their emotions. This idea comes from the relation of the kildren’s lack of history and the movie’s lack of background music. It’s through this that I believe that these two are related.

Though as they live, the background music represents their memories being created into history. Within the movie, the background music can be seen to represent a moment in which emotions have been elevated to a level of history not due to its absence but its familiar feel. The soundtrack of the movie is an important substance for the movie as a whole, “Film sound-taken as a single complex unit rather than three or more separate components-cannot be under stood without analyzing relationships among sound track components.”(Cooper) This shows that the soundtrack, upon multiple levels, contain a mass amount of information which supports the overall film. Due to the quality and timing of the soundtrack significance, quantity of the soundtrack isn’t needed, which is why we are presented with so many moments of absence of background music. As their way of life revolves around a non-history, all they are able to depend on is the emotion at the moment and their instances of living creating history in the moment. These instances are moments of heightened emotions, which can be reflected to the background music. In summary, the kildren are first presented with a lack of history and information, thus they having nothing to build on. Assuming that the background music is a reflectance of their history, this is why there is no background music for a lot of the film. The kildren first have a heightened moment of almost-memory, and then after, this moment is amplified for the viewers by the background music as they react to live in the current moment. In these moments where they are living in the moment, they are actually creating their own history for their current self.

In the first scene of the whole movie, right after the plane fight, we are able to hear the slowly intricate background music by Kenji Kawai. It sounds as though there is a complexity, which we later find within the twist of kildren within the story. This is what we are presented as we step into the world of skycrawlers. In the scene when Yuichi is gone and Kusanagi goes to his room, she seems to feel lonely or sad by the absence of Jinroh, Yuichi’s former self. As this scene begins with her outside the door, we suddenly hear the of the background music. This is a big difference from the usual silence that we hear through the movie, which signifies that this is an important and most likely an emotional moment. In a later scene, right after we learn of Teacher and how he is a man, we see that Kusanagi is going pilot a plane. This is the first instance and only instance in which she is piloting a plane. Within the beginning of this scene, the background music begins slowly and then increases in volume and tones. To me, it feels as though history is being created for Kusanagi. It’s almost as though the music is portraying her inner ambition to create change and as the music plays, it reveals her actions, motives,


(Figure 3)

and emotions at this time. Within the movie, it is seen that music plays only in moments that seem critically emotional or might be of importance.

There are many moments in which there are also imitations of background music and sounds which lead to having a history, but not in the sense of emotions deferred into history. Following the previous concept of background music’s connection to history, there are many other moments within the movie which causes memory training through repetition in the background music or sounds in general to be remembered in history. What I am referring to is the direct sounds created by the characters, and not the unseen background music that is experienced being incorporated into history. If we think about it, history isn’t just emotions but is also a series of memories. In many scenes within the movie, there are sounds that either try to imitate the background music of history or try to create their own sounds of history. In substitution of the lack of background soundtrack, the movie seems to have a lot of diegetic sounds. “Gorbman’s pithy definitions of diegesis as the ‘narratively implied spatiotemporal world of the action and characters’ and diegetic music as that issues from a source within the narrative.”(Winters) From this, it is possible to see that the diegetic sounds within the movie is a rich source of information. The way the sounds try to condition us is through repetition, creating for the viewers a sense of history through these other sounds. One such force of background music repetition would be the low rumbling of the planes. The low rumbling of the planes seems to create its own background music within the movie. It’s as if within the reality of the movie, Oshii is trying to have the characters create their own history, which wouldn’t be too crazy of an idea since the kildren had been associated to flying since we are first introduced to them. The low humming of the planes might be the movie’s attempt for the kildren to have their own sense of history and allows the viewers to see the process too. Another instance of the movie trying to create their own essence of background music and history is the scene when they are in the car driving to the brothel house.


(Figure 4)

The radio playing in the background tries to create its own atmosphere of background music, trying to set the mood. The radio’s music is trying to create a sense of history for the characters riding in the car. Aside from the music coming from the radio, there are also some other sounds coming from equipment or something else, but since in the movie they make a noise, they are an important attribute to the story. “The sound makes one think about the object because the object is recognized through the sound; but only rarely might the object…itself evoke the sound.”(Argyropoulos) This sound which causes us to be conditioned would be the opening of bottles, flickering of matches, or sparks from a wielder. These are the digetic sounds that I was referring to.


(Figure 5)

There are many other objects that can make sounds in the background, but it is only the important ones that make a sound and is recognized by the characters which are built into their present history.

Without history it is hard for a person to know who they are which would create for them a sense of alienation. It is within the movie “Sky Crawlers” that the character kildren are born and reborn without definite history. It is within this lack of history that the kildren feel as though they need to find their history. The movie is very vague in information distributed and tries to have us figure what is going in the movie. Within the background music, one is able to tell the emotions in the instance elevating to a level of history. Aside from the background music, there are also other sounds that attribute to the characters sense of history. In this movie the characters are alienated due to the absence of information about their history.


WORKS CITED

Argyropoulos, Erica. Beyond the Soundtrack: Representing Music in Cinema(Review). Notes. Vol. 64. (June 2008)

Cooper, David. Lowering the Boom: Critical Studies in Film Sound (Review). Music, Sound, and the Moving Image. Vol. 3.1 (Spring 2009)

Winters, Ben. "The Non-Diegetic Fallacy: Film, Music, and Narrative Space." Music and Letters Vol 91. (May 2010)

Site of Potentiality: Creating New Spaces Through Alienation and Redefinition in The Sky Crawlers

Introduction

Based on a series of books by Mori Hiroshi, Mamoru Oshii’s film The Sky Crawlers tells a tale about a world that is essentially at peace, wherein wars have once again become the domain of contracted mercenary groups who fight in the name of their corporations. In order to maintain peace, “Kildren,” long-lived beings who are not quite human, are specifically created to fight in these air battles. While these dogfights provide “peace” for the rest of the world, the Kildren suffer from feelings of alienation and purposelessness that are produced by their knowledge of their inevitable short lifespan, their inability to age, and their inability to form an identity or a coherent past. We can see how these feelings of alienation and purposelessness produce patterns self-destructiveness, as we see habits of smoking, drinking, and the contemplation of suicide among the Kildren, especially within Suito Kusanagi’s actions. However, on the other hand, Yuichi Kannami, who is also a Kildren, forms a different attitude about his condition. Rather than falling into a state of complacency or self-destructiveness (with the exception of the habit of smoking), Yuichi believes that the Kildren have the potential to change their destiny by trying to defeat the “undefeatable” enemy, ‘Teacher.’

Interdependence of Communality and Struggle

Yuichi’s mentality of trying to find new meaning in one’s existence through one’s struggle against the inevitable resembles Albert Camus’ existentialist novel, The Plague. The Plague presents life as a battle between death and the preservation of life rather than the conventional moral battle between good and evil. After living life solely focused on their personal gain and without the slightest thought of their mortality, the residents of Oran are forced to acknowledge the transiency of their temporal lives when confronted with the plague. As the disease claims more victims, their individual hopes for the future dwindle and they eventually realize the futility of trying to strive for separate goals. Although the plague destroys individual meaning because of the realization it brings of the inevitability of death, it offers a collective meaning in the participation of the united struggle against its eternal reign. The irony is that the force that the narrator is so adamantly fighting against (plague/death) is necessary for acquiring what is needed to fight against it (unity) and thus necessary for what is needed to find meaning in life. We can also see the interdependence of communality and struggle in other traumatic situations like the aftermath of the 1980s Kobe earthquake in Japan, where different groups of people came together in a collective effort to rebuild.

Like Dr. Rieux in The Plague, Yuichi declares a communal call to arms in the fight against Teacher to break the cycle of the Kildren’s exploited existence. However, while The Plague reveals the interdependence of struggle and communality based on the lack of community in Oran before being infected by the plague and the enhanced sense of community after being infected by the plague, The Sky Crawlers presents the Kildren as in a state of struggle/alienation ever since the time they came into existence. Furthermore, we can see how this struggle/alienation produces increasingly self-destructive behavior in Kusanagi, and how she only starts to change when Yuichi decides to change his and his fellow Kildrens’ destiny by trying to shoot down Teacher, ultimately risking his own life. Kusanagi’s reliance on Yuichi’s act of self-sacrifice and encouragement rather than her own alienation/struggle to change, complicates the notion of what exactly elicits communality. The fact that Kusanagi’s alienation and Yuichi’s love cause Kusanagi to change towards a new sense of communal commitment, demonstrates the how both struggle and amity or this private space between two individuals produce communality.

“Communality”: Multitude vs. Subtle Potentiality

In his article, “Bathing in the Multitude,” Michael Hardt describes a type of “communality” as this type of “love” in the air at great political demonstrations. He describes this communality as a “political feeling of love” when “we recognize together what we can share in common, what power we have together, and what we can do with each other.” When we think of communality in this sense, we imagine a sense of solidarity within a multitude of people with similar cause. For example, in The Sky Crawlers, we would imagine communality as all the Kildren banding together to break the cycle that they are trapped in. However, the communality that I am referring to in this paper is more subtle and one of potentiality. It is one that can be seen in both Yuichi sacrifice and encouragement, in Kusanagi’s new hopeful attitude at the end of the film, and in this private erotic space shared between both characters.

Repetition

Repetition in The Sky Crawlers reveals the inescapable cyclical nature of the Kildrens’ condition. From the very beginning when we are introduced to Yuichi’s character, Yuichi finds certain things eerily familiar even though he is a new pilot at his corporation. He is particularly haunted by the ghost of his past, Jinroh, the pilot that he comes to replace. For example, Yuichi is pleasantly surprised to discover that his predecessor’s plane fits him like a glove, even though it is his first time riding it. Other things also trigger a sense of familiarity such as the taste of meat pies from a local restaurant. When his friend Naofumi asks him what he thought about the meat pies, Yuichi replies, “It was good. It was like I’d tasted one somewhere before” (22:37). Later in the film, Yuichi eventually realizes that he is the reincarnation of Jinroh. He sees this process of repetition and replacement for himself, when he sees how Aihara has taken the place of his former teammate, Yudagawa, after Yudagawa gets shot down. His new teammate has the identical appearance and habits as his former teammate. They both have the same white hair, the same facial features, and they even have the same way of folding their newspapers after they read it. Right after Yudagawa’s reincarnation leaves the room, we can see how this reality of the cycle that he and the other Kildren are caught in, finally sinks into his mind when the camera zooms into his face and Yuichi ‘s face has the expression of someone just having discovered something shocking (1:34:32).


(Figure 1)

After the camera zooms in on Yuichi’s face a montage of scenes appear on the film. These scenes depict all the experiences that he had experienced before as Jinroh and in the present as Yuichi. The montage is like a flashback and realization of these cyclical memories for both Yuichi and the audience, as we realize the repetitiveness of these images throughout the film, such as the dog sniffing the broken match on the ground, Kusanagi smoking and looking out the window, Naofumi playfully greeting Yuichi, being in bed with Fuko, and the mechanic carrying the sleeping dog (1:34:43-1:35:53). This is a pivotal scene in the film because it is only after Yuichi fully realizes the extent of his entrapment that he tries to take action and break the cycle.

The undefeatable enemy, ‘Teacher,’ also demonstrates the inescapable cyclical nature of the Kildrens’ condition. Unlike the other fighters, Teacher is an adult man. This fact makes him an unmatched skilled fighter because unlike the Kildren, he is able to retain the coherence of his fighting experiences. Kusanagi explains to Yuichi how an undefeatable enemy like Teacher contributes to maintaining the exploitative ‘game’ in which the Kildren are forced to participate. She states, “Because our war is a game that is not supposed to ever end, some rules are needed. For example, there must be an enemy who cannot be defeated” (1:28:16-1:28:30). Hence, the name ‘teacher’ is ironic because he usually shoots the Kildren down and kills them, which ends up erasing their memory and experiences, rather than adding to their memory and experiences like an actual teacher. Furthermore, it is only when Kusanagi reveals to Yuichi that ‘Teacher’ is the “undefeatable enemy,” that we can see Yuichi’s first attempt to figure out a way to break the cycle. Yuichi asks Kusanagi, “If I shoot down Teacher, will something change? Something like destiny? Or limits?” and Kusanagi replies, “Maybe. But nobody can shoot him down” (87:03-87:18). Thus, the fact that Yuichi increasingly conveys a desire to take action the more he realizes the extent of his trapped condition demonstrates the potentiality of alienation.

Alienation

Although the Kildren are specifically created to fight for the corporations in these aerial dogfights, Kusanagi’s detachment throughout the film and Mitsuya’s emotional breakdown indicate their sense of alienation and suffering. Kusanagi is first shown in the film inside her office looking outside the window. The bright sunlight that comes through the window starkly contrasts with the darkness of her office. Despite the emotionless expression on her face, we can see how she yearns for Yuichi as she traces her finger across the window to his location outside by the plane. As she drops her finger and her head in a dejected manner, the camera zooms out, creating a lonesome scene as we see Kusanagi as a small lonely shadow deprived of the bright blue sky behind her. There are many other scenes throughout the film where Kusanagi is staring out the window into the bright outdoors from inside the dark building. In all these scenes, she is alone and pensive.


(Figure 2)


(Figure 3)



(Figure 4)


(Figure 5)

The fact that she is constantly staring out the window reflects her sense of being trapped, not inside the building, but inside the repetitive cycle of her existence as a Kildren.

Mitsuya, another Kildren, articulates her sense of estrangement and frustration because of her condition to Yuichi. While she buries her head into her hands, she cries, “Somehow, anything and everything is a fragmentary mess to me. I’m not certain that I’ve really experienced anything! No sense of solidarity at all!” (1:42:14-142:22). The desperation in her voice and her loss of a sense of a coherent identity all exhibit her suffering and alienation because of her condition as a Kildren. The extent of both Kusanagi’s and Mitsuya’s sense of alienation lead them to taking action in hopes to some way break the cycle. Other than Kusanagi and Yuichi, Mitsuya is the only other Kildren that tries to do something outside of the norm. After her emotional confessions to Yuichi, the next scene shows Mitsuya about to shoot Kusanagi with a gun. Although she does not give a clear explanation as to why she is trying to kill Kusanagi, she tells Yuichi, “If you want to get killed, go ahead” after he successfully takes away her gun (106:14). We can infer from Mitsuya’s response that she was trying to kill Kusanagi to prevent her from killing Yuichi, like she did to his predecessor, Jinroh. In her own way, Mitsuya also tries to break the cycle by preventing the repetition of Jinroh/Yuichi’s murder. The fact that this scene happens after Mitsuya’s emotional breakdown demonstrates the potentiality of alienation. Furthermore, in the following sections, we will see how the extent of Kusanagi’s alienation also contributes to her own change of attitude from complacency to hopefulness and determination.

Complacency and Self-destruction

The Kildrens’ habits of smoking, drinking and contemplating suicide portray how these feelings of estrangement cause self-destructive patterns. We can see all the Kildren smoking constantly throughout the film. Towards the beginning and towards the middle of the film, the camera zooms in on Kusanagi’s ashtray full of cigarettes and her cigarette box and lighter (27:39, 55:49).


(Figure 6)


(Figure 7)

The abundance of smoked cigarettes in the ashtray and the emphasis that the camera gives to these images clearly indicates the extent of Kusanagi’s habit of smoking, and thus it’s destructiveness. We can also see Kusanagi’s self-destructiveness in her excessive drinking. For example, when she and Yuichi have a conversation at a restaurant towards the end of the film, she drinks until she is unable to walk on her own. When they come out of the restaurant, Yuichi has to support Kusanagi with both hands just to keep her from falling down. The ultimate self-destructive behavior can be seen through Kusanagi’s habit of contemplating suicide. Tokino, Yuichi’s friend and teammate, warns him about how Kusanagi always carries around a gun. The first scene that zooms in on Kusanagi’s ashtray full of cigarettes that I mention also places as much emphasis on her gun, which is right next to the cigarettes. We also learn that Kusanagi was the one that killed Jinroh to grant freedom from their repetitive cycle. She also takes out her gun and points it at Yuichi’s temple after she becomes drunk and asks him, “Do you want me to kill you? Or will you do me a favor and kill me? Or else nothing will ever change for us” (1:30-1:30:15). She also tries to commit suicide towards the end of the film but Yuichi stops her from doing so.
The fact that many of these examples of self-destructive behavior are displayed in Kusanagi’s actions is not a coincidence, as she experiences more alienation than other Kildren because of her abnormally high survival rate and because of the fact that she has to deal with mothering a human child who will eventually exceed her in age. Because Kusanagi has lived longer than the other Kildren, she has had more exposure to living with the knowledge of the Kildren’s repetitive exploited existence. Her longer life span has also put her in the position of living with constant loss and having to reform relationships. Although the other Kildren also experience alienation and struggle from having to deal with these things, their shorter life spans make their feelings of estrangement brief in comparison with Kusanagi. Furthermore, Kusanagi experiences a unique struggle and alienation from mothering her human child. As Kusanagi will forever remain an adolescent and fight for her corporation, her human daughter will eventually surpass her in age and even in memories and having a history if Kusanagi dies in a battle. The inevitability of Kusanagi’s daughter exceeding her in age and the possibility of Kusanagi forgetting her daughter’s existence after dying and reincarnating, reveal how she can never have a normal relationship with her child where neither of those things would be issues. Thus, the fact that she knows that her relationship with her child can never be normal adds to her sense of alienation and struggle.

Motivation

In contrast to Kusanagi and Mitsuya, Yuichi does not openly exhibit feelings of suffering or alienation. He even displays signs of happiness in the film. For example, we can see the contrast in Kusanagi and Yuichi’s approach to looking out the window. Rather than staring out the window pensively from the inside, Yuichi opens the window and sticks his head outside, smiling, enjoying the breeze (9:23). Although Yuichi seems oblivious to feelings of estrangement, both Kusanagi and Mitsuya are strangely drawn to him. Both girls, although relatively appearing detached towards the rest of the public, open up to Yuichi and share their pain and confusion. Mitsuya even admits that Yuichi is the only one that she feels she can trust. When both girls open up to Yuichi, he does not seem too affected by the things that they tell him. Even when Mitsuya directly reveals to him his status as the reincarnation of Jinroh and the inescapable cyclical exploitation of their kind, Yuichi merely thanks her for the “interesting chat” and asks how her coffee was (1:43:55-1:44:07). His detachment in the conversation could possibly be the outcome of his own sense of alienation as he realizes the state of his condition when he how Aihara replaces Yudagawa right before his eyes. However, right after his conversation with Mitsuya, Yuichi displays a sense of hope as he stops Kusanagi from killing herself and commands her, “You have to live. Until you can find a way to change things” (1:47:05-1:47:09). When Yuichi starts embracing Kusanagi, we can see her usual tough and detached exterior crumbling as she begins to cry and embrace him back (1:47:30-1:47:41).


(Figure 8)

The intensity of her features and crying reveals her own breaking point and foreshadows her own desire to change things for the Kildren and herself and Yuichi. This scene also clearly demonstrates the extent of their deeply personal connection. We can connect this scene with other scenes that hint at their romantic relationship, such as when Kusanagi goes in Yuichi’s room (Jinroh’s old room) and rests her head on his bed and smells it longingly (28:36-28:43). Their romantic attachment is important to acknowledge because of the significant part it plays in both Kusanagi’s transformation from an attitude of detachment to one of communality and Yuichi’s motivation towards breaking the exploitative cycle.

After their emotional interaction, Yuichi sacrifices his life to shoot down Teacher to try to break the exploitative cycle. In the mean time, the scene back at the plane base shows Kusanagi stopping herself from smoking. After she puts the cigarette in her mouth and keeps it there for a few seconds, Kusanagi takes it out and her widened eyes and slight lifting of the head shows us that she has came to her own realization of a need to break the cycle (1:54:20-1:54:41).


(Figure 9)

By refusing to smoke, Kusanagi exhibits her own change of attitude, her new sense of hope, and a sign of commitment to a new communal fight against the exploitation of her fellow Kildren, as Yuichi did. Furthermore, in the final scene after the credits when the new reincarnation of Yuichi comes into Kusanagi’s office, we see a different Kusanagi as she takes off her glasses and reveals a new brightness in her eyes and a slight smile in her mouth. Her expression reveals a new welcoming demeanor than her previous state of aloofness while she states in a determined manner, “I’ve been waiting for you” (2:00:45-2:00:53). Oshii’s decision to put this particular scene at the very end after the credits raises some interesting questions. If seen together with the fighting scene before the opening credits begin, is it possible to assume that Oshii is creating another space by using the credits as a set of boundaries? And if so, does this mean that he is trying to show us how the repetitive cycle can be broken by creating this other space?


(Figure 10)

Conclusion

The fact that Kusanagi is detachment from the rest of the Kildren change only after Yuichi’s encouragement and act of self-sacrifice complicates the idea of the interdependence of communality and struggle. Furthermore, the unique erotic aspect of their relationship also adds another dimension to what elicits communality. However, like the instances of the interdependence of communality and struggle in Camus’ The Plague, we can still see the potentiality of struggle in The Sky Crawlers, as alienation incites subversive action in Yuichi and Misuya, and a change of attitude from complacency to determination in Kusanagi.


WORKS CITED

Camus, Albert. The Plague. Trans. Stuart Gilbert. New York: Vintage Books, 1991.

Hardt, Michael. “Bathing in the Multitude”. Crowds. Ed. Jeffery T. Schnapp and Matthew Tiews. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2006.

Karatani, Kojin, “How Catastrophe Heralds a New Japan”. Counter Punch. Ed. Alexander Cockburn and Jeffery St.Claire. March 24, 2011. http://www.counterpunch.org/karatani03 242011.html

The Sky Crawlers. Screenplay by Chihiro Ito. Dir. Mamoru Oshii. Perf. Ryo Kase, Rinko Kikuchi. Warner Bros. Japan, 2008. Film.

Politicizing Art in the Age of Information and Communications Technologies

Patlabor 2 (1993, Kidô keisatsu Patoreibaa 2 the Movie) starts with a battle scene in which a platoon of hostile resistance fighters engages fire against UN mechas using RPG’s. The army fighters destroy the industrialized weapons leaving peacekeeper Kiichi Gotoh bare to witness the rain falling on the Angkor Wat in Cambodia. A crucial shot in the anime film is the close up of Gotoh as he gets out of the industrialized weapon to look at the natural jungles of Cambodia still littered with mines placed by the Khmer Rouge. In the background the jungle sits still while he takes off his helmet only to keep his eyes shut to take in what has happened. As he opens them the lector is able to see a swollen eye along with cuts and profuse bleeding revealing the state of shock that his body is in. The view of the camera then switches focus bringing to the foreground the vast jungle through the eyes of Gotoh as he scans the area during ceasefire. In this reversal between foreground and background the view of the camera takes on a free-floating consciousness embodied in the gaze of the Bayon statue that towers above him. Holding his wounded arm Gotoh looks over his shoulder and gets startled at discovering the immense temples of the Khmer empire. This state of shock that Gotoh is in together with the presence of sacred objects in their natural state produces an aesthetic experience in him that becomes hyper accelerated by its contrast to the overwhelming experience of war. It is in this moment that Gotoh is able to experience the Sublime in a war torn region, a peace outside the realm of war that is not defined by the absence of war but, rather, reveals the limits of war and peace as understood by the United Nations.

As a critique international human rights work carried out by international organizations such as the UN whose stated aims are to spread and gain support in international law, the anime film shows the ways in which the suffering of individuals and groups is intensified by the perpetual warfare required to implement and maintain a certain image of justice. He was one of the early directors that experimented with the upcoming technology of 3D computer graphics. Blending 2D cell-shaded animation and computer graphics his experimental use mixes cel film, a transparent sheet of celluloid or similar material that is drawn on and used in the production of anime films, and 3D computer graphics of his time to draw out the political implications in the technologies of reproducibility of the time. Using the existing technologies of reproducibility of the 90’s and submitting to the conventions of his time (the aesthetic dimension of the present: film animation as a medium, anime as a genre) the director Mamoru Oshii limns the overwhelming complications associated with forcing a particular idea of international human rights on other people. With the presence of the UN in countries such as Thailand and Cambodia, the attempt at establishing human rights becomes uncertain and confused as different groups and organizations pursue their own agenda that does not fit the political schema of the UN and its supporters. The task at hand then for human beings in the position to assist in “stanching the flow of human blood, diminishing cries of human pain, unbending the crouch of human fear…” as Wendy Brown puts it, is not as clear cut and simple as it may seem (Human Rights p. 452). Human rights are supposed to improve living conditions for human beings in extreme situations around the world. However, the crisis that stems from international human rights efforts is that it is not enough nor will it ever be. In supporting lives in underdeveloped countries what were really doing is letting them live longer to struggle; we keep the problem alive at the expense of human lives in order to keep our capitalist life style. Brown’s piece “‘The Most we can Hope for…’: Human Rights and the Politics of Fatalism deals with the some of the same issues present in Oshii’s anime film as well. She writes in regards to human rights,

“human rights are vague and unforeseeable; their content is infinitely malleable; they are more symbolic than substantive; they cannot be grounded in any ontological truth or philosophical principle; in their primordial individualism; they conflict with cultural integrity and are a form of liberal imperialism; they are a guise in which the globalization of capital drapes itself; they entail secular idolatry of the human and are thus as much a religious creed as any other” (p.451).

In other words, human rights cannot be reduced to one maxim, to a categorical imperative in which one would do one thing and one thing only in all circumstances: every situation has its own historical and ontological properties as opposed to Kant who argued that one should act according to the maxim that can be willed universal by everyone in a similar situation, which will always be in accordance to the State Law. Similarly, organizations that attempt to universalize a particular notion of human rights in other countries take for granted what it is that allows for the pursuit of such a goal. The pursuit of an ethical peace is not found in reducing human rights to an ultimate principle but, rather, by producing a breed of human rights activism that does not negate other possible ways of dealing with the crisis at hand.

In the film, the process of restricting human suffering that the UN undertakes perpetuates the very thing it seeks to prohibit: the use of violence will secure the State a sovereign space within which the people who’s rights are protected are able to inhabit, but this space is always something that has to be policed at the expense of other humans whose rights cannot be recognized or grieved as lives. Rather than questioning the system and finding other ways of being politically involved, peacekeepers resort to war in order to keep peace, the terms of war having to strip the intelligibility of some bodies in order to justify the rights of some by necessarily excluding others: the war apparatus remains working within the same system of capital or symbolic surplus rather than trying other ways of handling the crisis, which may require the negotiation of the very terms of liberal rights discourse that is particular to the state. The presence of UN peacekeepers in a country that does not recognize international law only aggravates the situation in creating more human suffering that could have been avoided had they not been there. According to Brown, “…human rights activism is valuable not because it is founded on some transcendent truth, advances some ultimate principle… but rather simply because it is effective in limiting political violence and reducing misery” (452-453). For this reason, the Kantian categorical imperative cannot be used as a justification for the existence of rights discourse, but only the need of considering each crisis in its historical specificity, without generalizations or abstractions into universal laws that often impede the political will towards action. Oshii clearly depicts the exacerbation of the problem and the contradictions of keeping peace through war when we see the objects that symbolize peace being destroyed by the resistant military wing. The function of peacekeepers being sent to patrol foreign countries is to maintain stability and improve the lives of the people. However, the peacekeepers ignite and create more conflicts, more blood flow as in the case with Gotoh and more chaos as a result of conflicts between international law and the various organized militias groups in the area. Additionally, rather than approaching it other ways that can lessen and even end unnecessary human pain, the UN works within the closed system of perpetual violence and it is this working within the dichotomy of war and peace that the UN forces its discourse onto autonomous regions that creates more situations in which dangerous conflicts can break out. As a result, the effects intended by the various activist groups only reproduce the system that creates the conditions for war. Instead of questioning the root problem (liberal imperialism) political organizations keep the system alive in a perpetual state of peace through war.

The first scene that takes place in Cambodia abruptly cuts from a close up of the Bayon head to the 0.98 Labor Operating System training simulation set in Japan for the new Shinohara Heavy Industry Corporation Patrol Labor. Oshii takes us on an excursion from one extreme to the other; from the aesthetic experience that Gotoh has in the still shot of the Bayon face to the transition to Japan’s technologically driven society at the height of its urban sprawl. This juxtaposition of the organic sublime to the inauthenticity of the modern aestheticizes the surreal world of Japan’s futuristic society at the same time that it draws out the aesthetic impression of the Angkor Wat. It brings to the fore the differences between the natural and laborious production in Cambodia to the automated, impersonal and highly technologized world of Japan’s industrial society, creating an ethereal experience characteristic of the modern in this juxtaposition of the late-modern and post-industrial urban scape to its obscene and sustaining underside: the result is precisely the Sublime of the Real trauma as the experience of a primordial jouissance through this play of life and death, peace and war. Indeed, this juxtaposition is quite brilliantly illustrated in the “cyborg” like character of the mecha, a natural and organic character extended in space and time, made more efficient through its technological appendeges which become inextricable from the function of the human in late-modernity:



(Figure 1)[1]


Oshii raises the doubt that improving technology is a solution to the problems found in the first scene. He questions whether we need to improve our technology in order to be able to fight and end conflicts through war more efficiently, since for him they seem to merely extend conflict into previously unfathomable spaces that are the result of technological proliferation itself. In the movie, the technological innovations that take place after the battle between UN mechas and the militia group are supposed to be a solution to the problem, the idea being more powerful weapons will instantiate a universal peace. However, Oshii seems to be proposing the opposite in critiquing the strategies that are undertaken by industrialized nations such as the U.S. who attempt to implement an idea of what peace “is”. Their use of industrialized weaponry to reify the idea of international human rights in other countries fails altogether once the cure to the problem becomes the very disease. If the production and expansion of discourse produces and proliferates the very means of resistance to that discursive assemblage, then Oshii’s critique can be read in a Foucauldian light since the new technologies that are meant to suppress the insurgency simply create new spaces and, thus, new means of resistance that are enabled through technological expansion itself. In starting the film off in Cambodia Oshii questions the U.S. role as an international police unit. The recent violent history of Cambodia dates back to the Vietnam War when the war spread into Cambodia. During the Vietnam War the U.S. bombed the Vietcong along with the parts of Cambodia, their pretext being that Cambodia was a hiding place used by the Vietnam’s People’s Army. The U.S. government viewed involvement in the war as a way to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam and, as a result, Cambodia got pulled into the war. The war to fight communism ended with heavy U.S. casualties along with heavy civilian casualties from the bombardment of the Vietcong. After the U.S. pulled out of the war civilian casualties in Cambodia rose to the millions. The Khmer Rouge’s leader Pol Pot took advantage of the countries vulnerability and of the scared citizens after the war as he promised protection and refused Western influence. However, the outcome turned out different. Pol Pot’s plan was to erase the history of Cambodia by killing all the intellectuals, brain washing the youth and starting genocide that led to a death of an estimated 1.5 to 1.7 million.

Incorporating a country that has shown a history of violence and oppression is significant in contextualizing modern international efforts for human rights since the anime film was released in 1993 soon after the Gulf War, which has become characteristic of late-modern conflicts. The Iran-Iraq War began when Iraq launched an invasion of Iran on September 20 1980. Iraq’s air forces attacked Iranian airfields with the intent to destroy the Iranian Air Force base. Saddam Hussein’s reason for invading was a supposed assassination attempt to kill the Foreign Minister of Iraq, Tariq Aziz. The war ended once the UN negotiated ceasefire but this only lasted a few years until the Gulf War began as a result of border conflicts between Iran and Iraq. Both Cambodian history and Middle Eastern history have had border disputes. In the case of the Gulf War the U.S. led the war and called all other nations to join the front against Saddam Hussein and his regime. Cambodia’s history is full of border disputes that date back to the 1400-century. In incorporating Cambodia and its history, Oshii questions U.S. involvement in the Gulf War and their absence in not only Cambodia, but other countries where there is there genocide going on. He questions their role as global police and draws out the contradictions in their global agenda and its effectiveness. Places like Cambodia, Africa and other underdeveloped nations that have had it worse have yet to be aided by the U.S. How can some lives like the lives of Iraqi citizens be recognized as grievable[2] and how can others not be considered lives at all like the Khmer people that have been suffering for centuries as a result of the agenda of other countries. In Frames of War Judith Butler distinguishes between lives that are considered grievable and lives that are not recognized as lives. She writes, “Normative schemes are interrupted by one another, they emerge and fade depending on broader operations of power, and very often come up against spectral versions of what it is they claim to know: thus, there are subjects, and there are “lives” that are not quite recognizable as subjects, and there are “lives” that are not quit – or indeed, are never – recognized as lives (p. 7). In the anime film, the normative schemes set up by the U.S. global policy do not recognize certain lives as grievable as opposed to lives that are in our interest to save. A big question regarding U.S. involvement in the Gulf War and the more recent Iraq war focuses on and asks about the oil that the liberal imperialist society of the U.S. benefits from. Oshii engages in that widespread critique of U.S. intentions which asks whether or not the U.S. political agenda is based on its own self-interest. Given the history of underdeveloped countries such as Africa and other struggling nations like Cambodia, it seems as if the U.S. picks and chooses which lives are worth a life and uses it to normalize and justify human rights efforts.

By the end of the anime movie the technological innovations clearly function to complicate and blur the problems caused by technology and its limitations. As Captain Gotoh finds himself entangled in the political crisis as Yukihito Tsuge, an angry war veteran of the Japanese Self-Defense Force leads a military terrorist group into a violent assault against Tokyo and blows up the Yokohama Bay Bridge. Pat labor 2 draws police commanders Kiichi Gotoh into the chase after Tsuge. But the investigation into the crisis is protected by secrets both personal and political. Oshii uses the technologies of mechanical reproduction particular to his time to politicize art and creates new modes of political life in the age of information and electronic technologies. In the piece "The Work of Art in the Age of Technological Reproducibility" Walter Benjamin is writing at a time when film begins to emerge as a pervasive and accessible medium and technology particular to its time. He argues that man, while limited to the means of technological reproduction of a time, is also capable of rearticulating the uses of those technologies and finding a new means of previously unforeseen modes of political life. In doing so, Benjamin notes that while the aesthetic technologies of time are limiting, they also enable a timeless and constant revolutionizing that cannot be confined to those technologies, effectively equating art to politics. Oshii meets the revolutionary demands that Benjamin seems to be calling for in using computer graphics and cel film animation to depict through art and film the political implications of the world in which the film is imbedded. In this Oshii creates new modes of being involved with politics that were not possible before the invention of the technologies of reproducibility that he uses.


NOTES

1. The new Shinohara Industry Patrol Labor in the anime film is a result of an upgrade from the Hiishii Industries AL97B Hannibal, which is the mecha that Kiichi is in when he gets shot. It is supposed to improve the efficiency and efficacy of international human rights efforts.

2. Professor Judith Butler in Frames of War: The Politics of Ungrievable Life explores the way that recent US-led wars have enforced a distinction between those lives that are recognized as grievable, and those that are not.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media." Selected Writings. Vol. 4. Cambridge, MA: Belknap of Harvard UP, 2008. 250-83. Print. 1938-1940.

2. Butler, Judith. Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable? London: verso, 2009. Print.

3. Brown, Wendy. "Human Rights and the Politics of Fatalism." The South Atlantic Quarterly 103 (2004): 251-63. Print.

The Aesthetics of Violence

Art surrounds us so many different facets of life. Moments of aesthetic pleasure can be hidden or overt in man-made creations and in natural objects and placement. Beauty and how it is perceived can be manipulated by the director or graphic designer in order to pull a specific reaction from the viewer. More specifically, in Anime, the director uses beautiful images to portray ugly and horrific moments. Within anime, structural art arises and takes form in a variety of ways. Everything that the artist and designer create will be art in the film, regardless of what the specific objects are. There is a different effect because the images are cartoons---created images they aren’t real to the viewer. There will not be very many visceral cues for the audience members to hold onto. A sort of gauze separates viewer from the event on screen. Though there may be an emotional connection to events happening on screen, this connection is dampened by the fact that the characters are not real, the scene is in graphics and a screen is placed between the event and the viewer. The viewer can in effect detach himself from this situation, this violence. Various questions arise: what is the purpose of the director’s choice to portray violence in this particular way? Is this an attempt to get a specific reaction from onlookers? The reason for portraying characters and violent events in a certain way is alleviate the viewer of some the pain that is hidden in the moment of recognition.

The film Patlabor 2 contains specific instances when the scene is bloody and traumatic, but the only disturbing aspect of scene might be the screams and cries of characters in the film. The viewer is not traumatized by the situation. The lack of recognition of wounds and of terror is because the images are merely fake representations of a real life situation. The focus on beauty in the film is one notion that can be overlooked throughout it is very much present in all aspects of this work, though it is not always acknowledged. In specific clips of the film, one might be able to sense that there is some strife without fully being aware that some of the pain is screened in hidden because of the way it is portrayed. It is interesting that such a perception and reaction can be manipulated based on how the information is presented. Certain scenes of obvious violence, blood dripping from a face or from an arm, a car or building blowing up and shattering into countless smithereens; may not have the same effect on the viewer because it is not in real life time. Any person can distance themselves from these specific situations because it seems that these instances do not in fact apply to them. A certain gauze lies between the viewer and the characters on the screen. However, had these aesthetically pleasing accidents been real life situations on the screen, or even closer in real life time, an observer would have a different reaction to these specific events. Art is merely a representation of life. Of course, it is a story told from a certain perspective, perhaps with a certain voice but it is still an experience that has occurred. However, one needs to be conscious of the art and what role it is playing in the situation in order to have an aesthetic experience. One must have an aesthetic attitude to identify how art and the director’s choices are playing into how the viewer experiences the film.

‘…the aesthetic experience is best described, at least initially, from a pretheoretical perspective. Aesthetic experience is the sort of experience that most, perhaps all, have with some frequency but that is described in sometimes very different ways. Very few have difficulty picking out aesthetic experiences from nonaesthetic ones. If one attends the opera, even if she does not enjoy the opera but sits bored and fidgeting, she will still recognize this as a classic example of a setting where aesthetic experiences are normally had. If a flower is offered, one will recognize this as an invitation to experience the flower aesthetically.’ (Fenner 5).

How violence is represented in Anime, where images of war and destruction fill the screen show demolition in a beautiful way. What is the reason behind portraying violence in such a way that is pleasing to the eye? The director might create horrible situations but in order to deaden the pain, create them in such a way the one might be able to uneasily swallow the situation. Amidst hardships of life, art has served in such a way to relay reality back to ourselves. Mediums such and drawing, painting, poetry, dance, song, music might serve as a way to package life in way that can be bearable and watched and experienced.

From the start of the film, Patlabor 2 speaks destruction. Machinery and humans collide and one is forced to deal with the shards left over from the attacks. Large mechanical bodies threaten the lives of those in its way. The background music too, plays into how the scene is received. Scene 2:07, the destruction looks almost beautiful as the orange collides with grey giving the attack an ethereal glow. When the smoke billows in the air and spreads throughout the screen, one is not threatened and does not think about choking smell of smoke or enter into the scene through imagination. There is a separateness that is evident in the way that the situation is depicted. This scene is beautiful because of the way in which it looks. The scene shows machinery collapsing, technology taking over as the earth crumbles. However, if these exact moments had been constructed out of real life objects, the reaction might be different. The audience might have a more visceral reaction to the ruin. The exploration of the idea that art plays a huge role in one’s emotional connection to a film is ground breaking. Graphic art separates one from what could be a tragic bone chilling recognition of a real life experience. ‘Such vividness and explicitness can be the effect of a representation’s relationship to indexical reality but also to the intensity of its visual impact as a function of its content and the photorealistic or hyperrealistic effects of textual mediation. The degree of indexicality the representation has with historical examples of actual violence is one way affective impact on readers and audiences can be heightened’ (Symonds 4). The idea that portrayal can have such a large impact on a viewer’s reaction speaks to the reality that presentation does matter.

‘While graphic details in the representation of fictional violence can cause less desensitized audiences of a film to turn away from the screen or to provoke public calls for stricter censorship, there remain distinctions to be made between that effect and the viewing by audiences of violence in real time that they know to be nonfictional, as in television live-from-the-scene reporting. At the far end of the continuum from that indexicality where graphic violence is at its most stylized and the representation of violence can be turned primarily into an aesthetic pleasure—as the way people are hurt on screen becomes a production value defined by virtuosity in special effects re-creation---we find violence that often deflects audience response away from the revulsion that violence in actuality would inevitably cause’ (Symonds 4).

At scene 0:16, one cannot get a grasp of the gravity of the situation because the explosion is shot from far away, it is not till later that people are seen and even amidst the debris there is only a little bit of whimpering. The amount of devastation is unfathomable because of the way the director has relayed the information and the moment to the audience. A type of wall lies between the actual event and a person’s connection to this event.

Also, the characters in the movie do not perceive this beauty---only the audience members do. What does this mean? What can this tell us about the director’s intentions and reasons for dealing with violence and pain in this particular way? Oshii’s choice of how he portrays violence may reflect upon his understanding of audience perception and the power of art. One does not immediately consider these factors when entering into a film. As Fenner claims, one must take on an aesthetic attitude towards all aspects of life. Such an attitude will shape the way one sees the world and how he/she intakes all that they experience. The scenes in Patlabor 2 will not provoke sorrow to the same degree if they are simply graphic representations of a real life occurrences. The colors, the purples, blues against a grey orange backdrop make for a dramatic effect, pleasing to the eye. One does not feel discomfort but pleasure, rapture rather than extreme pain. It is interesting to think that this particular choice of how to portray an event makes such a big impact on how it is received. Real life images, still life photographs however have a different impact. ‘It is true that the initial effect of ling’chi pictures is visceral. They are too real, too savage and forbiddimg to be subsumed under an aesthetic program or practice, even if the point of that program or practice is the disruption and displacement of the very categories and terms in which artistic production is conceived’ (Buch 29). This image has a different, more poignant effect on the viewer for a different reason. Presentation is a large reason as to why a scene is not received in the same way. To an Anime scene, a person will shield their eyes from a frightening and graphic situation, however in real life time, a squeamish person will shudder at such a scene. A person’s knowledge of reality versus fiction will definitely dictate how they understand violent situations on screen.

Oshii had a specific goal in mind when he designed his plan for Patlabor 2. He dictated and calculated the type of reaction he would like to retrieve from the audience, as most directors do. He had a particular destination in mind and willed himself to take others along with on his journey. Art truly does influence us in countless ways though it may go unnoticed. Violence is portrayed in a beautiful way in Oshii’s Anime film, Patlabor 2 in order for an onlooker to be able to take all of it in. War, destruction, and violence are mixed in with colors, beauty, and pleasure. In the realm of Anime, such a combination exists and is gladly welcomed.

WORKS CITED


Buch, Robert. The Pathos of the Real. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010.

Fenner, David E. W. The Aesthetic Attitude. New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1996.

Oshii, Mamoru. Patlabor 2. Film

Symonds, Gwyn. The Aesthetics of Violence in Contemporary Media. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group Inc, 2008.