Genre: Anime, Action, Drama
Release year: 2008
Language: Japanese
Subtitle: English
SYNOPSIS:
In a world very similar to ours, there are children who do not age. They're known as "Kildren," and they're fighting a war. Against whom, and to what end is not important. One such boy, a young fighter pilot named Yuichi Kannami, arrives at his base out in the country, assigned to a small battalion. He's never met these people before, but soon finds himself in an alarmingly familiar routine, acting out relationships that seem predestined. Of course, this has all happened before.
RATING: ?/10
USER RATING:
REVIEW:
" ...It becomes pretty clear over the course of the movie that the real target of Oshii's scorn is the anime itself: a curiosity to foreigners, but really little more than the same old thing repeated ad infinitum, with seldom an echo of originality. And anime fans, long since settled into a complacency with this repetition, are used to having such boy pilots as their avatars, exploring these worlds that have echoes of our own, but are in fact fantasy worlds. Most of them are interchangeable, and the characters themselves are milquetoast and free of personality, as Yuichi is. Like the avatar of a dating simulator, the expected things seem to just happen to him. And, indeed, nothing else will happen to him until he realizes that his way out is to strive towards something.
The distinguishing characteristics of an Oshii film, from the token basset hound to the long-winded scenes of expository dialogue are all here, but they seem less prominent than we've come to expect. The dogfight scenes are gorgeously rendered in CG, but take on an intentionally banal and meaningless tone. The film is more about the mood than anything else, of people in the prime of their lives, yet content to let those juicy bits of life go to ruin by being allowed to sit on the back burner, simmering until there's nothing left. The voice work is especially notable, despite some hard-to-decode Engrish exchanges over the fighter jets' radio system. As is increasingly common among high profile anime films, prominent live action actors make up the cast, and this one features Ryo Kase from Letters from Iwo Jima, Oscar nominee Rinko Kikuchi, and Chiaki Kuriyama of Kill Bill fame.
The Sky Crawlers is an intense experience, and a level of artistic expression far beyond the levels even the best anime strives towards. The layers will, to some, prove impenetrable. Those in the film press will laud it for being an audacious societal critique, but they are not its audience, and likely know nothing of its real subject matter. Most American anime fans, true youth that has not yet dead-ended but are merely seeking the adventures of the latest shonen action hero du jour, will dismiss it without the contemplation necessary for its digestion. But to those of us whose youth is waning as we stay up late watching our cartoons, we are likely to see ourselves behind the avatar of Yuichi. Not doing the things he does, but watching relentlessly, ceaselessly. Fooling ourselves into surprise every time. Fooling ourselves that this is a life.
There's a scene late in the film where Suito finally breaks and begins to explain, in more typical Oshii expository dialogue, the scientific and speculative reason behind the existence of Kildren and why they do what they do. As we listen to her, and the screen zooms in on her face spouting all of this, we begin to realize that it's all utter gibberish. These explanations do nothing but attempt to rationalize the existence of something that shouldn't exist to begin with. It's that moment when The Sky Crawlers truly takes a stand and declares that this vicious cycle is unacceptable, and that those living these meaningless lives simply must do something. It's the antithesis of The Wrestler, for it has little sympathy for those caught in a destructive loop of life. Rather, Oshii knows that something can, and must, be done.
Note: Stay through the credits. The epilogue is a sly bit of cynicism indeed.... "
Source: Anime News Network
PREVIEW:
FEATURED CLIPS:
Theme Song
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