Quote:
Originally Posted by MrProphet
An acquaintance of mine visited the premiere in Tokyo, says the film is incredibly beautiful.
He did, however, warn me off spoilers and refused to divulge them himself, so now I'm dying to know what's so special about that plot there.
Anyone seen it already? How about some general reactions?
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As
humbug23 mentioned,
The Sky Crawlers opened in Singapore cinemas on Nov 27. I watched it twice, on Nov 28 and 29 respectively.
This is the general reaction: It's a Mamoru Oshii movie produced by Production I.G. In other words, it's
tediously boring — on first viewing.
That initial tedium was compounded by another problem — I had been listening to the movie's soundtrack so regularly for the past two months that I had formed certain impressions about the story based on the music's mood. Hence, I was often distracted whenever the music started playing, because the scenes did not match what I already had in mind.
That said, I highly recommend watching the movie a second time, after finding out what happened in the end. This is one of those films, I suppose, that gets better with repeated viewing.
(Also, watching it a second time reinforces the movie's central theme. Try it, and you'd see what I mean.)
My verdict after the second viewing? It's still a tedious film, not unlike the rest of Oshii's oeuvre, but nonetheless highly effective and even sadly beautiful. Perhaps that is the effect Oshii wanted, in which case, hat's off to him — he has created a wonderful movie.
But that may be giving Oshii more credit than is due. Some part of me suspects that he was being self-indulgent as usual, and was once again trying his audience's patience too severely with his overly languorous style.
I won't reveal too much more of the plot, because that would be a spoiler. My advice for those who are going to watch
The Sky Crawlers: Think of it more as a whodunit mystery than a war movie. Once you spot the hows, the why will reveal itself.
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.
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And, oh yeah, remember to sit through the credits for the epilogue. It'll bring much-needed closure.
