Read and Appreciated in 2002
An Editorial Year’s Best List
Battle Royale, Directed by Kinji Fukasaku
(Toei/Battle Royale Production Committee, 2000)
(Another of New Age Entertainment’s releases. These guys are a godsend, I tell you.)
Far from a godsend, however, is the nightmarish BR Act that is passed in order to curb juvenile delinquency in a chaotic, totalitarian Japan. Under cover of the BR Act, a high school class is randomly singled out each year, and then sent off to an island on a sadistic war game from which only one teenager can come back alive. The movie is extremely graphic in its depiction of violence, but contrarily to what you’d expect, it doesn’t neglect the characters and the perverse dilemma they’re forced into by uncaring parents, government and media (tv networks cheerfully cover the event, while the unfortunate victims’ names and numbers are ticked off on-screen with such indifference that borders on the disturbing). The script was written with a generous share of twisted creativity, and the direction is competent enough to handle the material without turning it into some vapid teen slasher flick. Highly recommended—if you can stomach it.
Child Soldiers (tv)
Directed by Alan Lindsay
Produced by Andrew Ogilvie
(Electric Pictures, 2002)
Reality, however, can get even sicker than fiction. If you think paedophilia is the worst that can be done to a child, think again. All over the world—especially in Africa and Asia, but even in such unsuspected nations as the USA or the UK —children are being recruited by the government and/or armed opposition forces to act as soldiers, spies, couriers, sex slaves, or merely cannon fodder. Coerced, abused, alienated, or otherwise persuaded, these children are taught to obey blindly and kill without remorse, all for the benefit of a few minor (and not so minor) warlords who tend to live luxuriously off a country’s often vast but misapplied resources. This essential documentary will spare you only of what it has no time to show, but don’t think of looking away—it won’t do shit to help.
More on the subject at the following websites:
“Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex” (tv)
Directed by Kenji Kamiyama
(Production I.G, 2002)
First of all, this isn’t some cheap tv spin-off made to cash in on the huge success of the movie and comic book. “Stand Alone Complex” is beautifully produced all around. It combines high-end computer imagery with a more traditional drawing style to create superbly fluid animation. The dialogue and storyline for each episode are as complex and thought-provoking as the original work itself, continuing to blur the interface between man and machine. My only criticism is that the music by Yoko Kanno is not on par with Kenji Kawai’s movie soundtrack, unfortunately. It’s hard to pick a favourite episode (not that I have to), but I found “Proof of Influx” to be oddly touching, even though it’s centred on a behemoth tank gone out of control. Maybe I’m just a soft-hearted wimp, but it only took them thirty minutes to make me feel sympathy for a big-ass machine that doesn’t even say a word the whole time. Hell, the show is brilliant!
