38: Akira (1988, Katsuhiro Otomo)

Owned version: The two-disc DVD released by Pioneer in 2001.

Acquired: Most likely around Christmas time in 2001, either from the Times Square Virgin Megastore or the Tower Records that was next to Lincoln Center. (Neither storefront is there any more, to my everlasting chagrin.)

Seen before?: Four times - once in the early '90s from the old Streamline dubbed VHS (the original version, not the later version co-released with Orion), once in probably 1998 or 1999 from the subtitled VHS Streamline released in the mid-'90s, once in April of 2001 during the theatrical re-release that featured the new Pioneer dub and once from this disc on March 9th of 2010, which led to this sorry punt of a review. As I'm typing this, I'm noticing that without meaning to my fifth viewing of Akira occurred exactly nine years after my last one.

The impression I feel I'm giving here is that everything on my previous Tumblr was tossed-off garbage. Which... I dunno. There's a lot of quick-sketch nonsense there, that's true. I was having trouble balancing my work demands with my viewing desires, as I often am. So a lot of what I threw up there was to get stuff out of the way so I could feel good about moving on to the next film. I feel less able to do that nowadays - if I'm writing something here, I want it to be worthwhile, and if I want to just toss off a bit of snark I've got Letterboxd for that. That said, there's a few times I went longer over there that I'm still a little proud of. In particular, I got a few decent pieces off the idea of the "Rosetta shot," a shot capped from a film that seemed to sum up the whole of the endeavor, whether for good or ill. (Here's an NSFW example.) To start my trip through Akira, I'd like to resurrect that idea. So here it is:

This is, in the middle of a melee, a riot cop shooting a protestor point-blank in the chest with a gas grenade. I'd never really registered this moment in my previous runs through this, because it's not really meant to be noticed - it's a small touch, a quick dose of grim color with which to add definition to the world Otomo has built. But it stuck out for me this time, if for no other reason than my brain kept entertaining the slim possibility: What if this guy wasn't a protestor? What if he was just an urban scavenger who happened to be in the vicinity, saw a piece of piping and a helmet that would be useful to him, and tried to make off with it before the situation exploded around him? And even if he is a protestor... does that mean he deserves a gas charge to the chest at point-blank range when he's already clearly affected by the gas from previous charges? This is, at bottom, a stark illustration of the heedless exercising of power; that it's quietly tossed off in the middle of a larger setpiece does nothing to water down the elemental truth it gets at regarding Akira. For this is absolutely a movie about power, about those who wield it and what they do with it and how that leaves any number of relative innocents crushed under concrete and steel.

Otomo is not subtle about this. His characters are aware of the forces they're given to control (or not control) and often discuss the morality of that duty towards these forces. (Upon being presented with Tetsuo's brainwaves by excitable Einstein-looking egghead Dr. Onishi, "Maybe we shouldn't touch that power," is the response of Colonel Shikishima - the closest thing to a good guy on the governmental side of the story, and even he stages a military coup later in the film out of what he deems necessity.) But... well, let's take a look at the context for the above shot. The protestor comes staggering out of the cloud of gas, head bowed, unable to see the cop. The cop sees the protestor, who poses no clear threat, takes a minute, draws a bead and fires away. This is not a heat-of-the-moment snap decision - this is as considered an attack as can occur under these circumstances. The cop knows not who he's firing upon, just that he's firing upon someone who isn't a cop, which means therefore in this situation they're an automatic enemy, something less-than. He's under the grip of The Suspicion. The Suspicion is enough to warrant action, to reaffirm the right of the strong over the weak lest the weak become the strong. The Suspicion is never wrong.

So it goes with any figure in this film with a certain level of power - they must demean, dismiss or otherwise dehumanize their targets so as not to feel conflicted about their actions. Onishi overlooks Tetsuo's humanity for the sake of advancing science, realizing too late that he's unleashed something uncontrollable; the ministers on the government board downplay Shikishima's authority and ignore his fears so they can justify their own station; the bike gangs fight as squadrons rather than individuals, in the manner of any war or biker film. By the time Tetsuo's immense rage (borne of a life of being bullied, of being seen as less-than) manifests into immense psychic powers, he's learned thoroughly how not to consider the effect - the crucial test is his first attack on other humans, in the hallway of the hospital where he's being kept, and Otomo depicts it from the far end of said hallway, in the distance and at a remove that matches the casual, almost accidental way Tetsuo turns what he views as his adversaries into streaks of blood on the ceiling.

This sort of power, this ability to kill with a thought that turns men into callous gods... the application of such seems a logical end point for the post-WWIII society depicted by Otomo, a society on the edge of disaster hurtling heedlessly towards another attempt at self-extinction. One of the shriveled children who serve as one of the lines of defense against Tetsuo has a premonition of this extinction, proclaiming, "The city will crumble, and so many people will die..." Yet it can be said that the city is already crumbled, already gone to seed under the weight of anger and political discord and grotesque self-interest and The Suspicion. Decay is all around, over and under and through the remains of the old city left to fester alongside the gleaming neon distraction of Neo-Tokyo, because all flesh will die and all flesh will rot and even a god can be reduced to component body parts hidden underneath a stadium. And if all flesh will die, and the world built by people can said to be an extension of them, what does that say about the permanence of the world? Skin splits, glass shatters, stone crumbles, metal buckles - everything is impermanent in the face of the kind of power that can crack the earth in two. That kind of power... should it even be in the hands of people? What positive application could it have? What could it be other than a gas grenade into the chest of society?

Yet Otomo also finds beauty in the destruction. His stirring compositions, skewed and emphasizing the enormity of the edifices and the lack thereof of the people dwarfed by and wandering through them, are consistently gorgeous. When windows blow out, the glass floats down like crystal rain; when smoke billows it does so in enveloping clouds like cumuli crashing to the firmament. His indulgence of body horror has a grotesque and memorable poetry, whether it be bodies erupting in blood like fountains, milk leaking from nightmarish evil toys or Tetsuo's flesh ballooning into an undulating mountain of undifferentiated slime-tissue. A brief jaunt into space is a beautifully silent ode to breakdown. More than a visual beauty, though, there's an emotional beauty in the ways its characters find to push back against The Suspicion. If unchecked power reigns free and gruesome self-interest is the way of the ruling class, defiance is still an option - a foolhardy one, but that's better than no option at all. Kaneda ropes a group of revolutionaries into trying to free Tetsuo and nearly succeeds. Ryu, head of the revolutionaries, gets betrayed by and shot by the government mole who's been feeding him information, yet still manages to outlive the man who shot him, however briefly, and achieve a sad sort of grace. Shikishima fires his pistol at the rapidly mutating Tetsuo, knowing he'll be overwhelmed by the tidal wave of flesh and willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of the three psychic children; his selflessness is repaid when Akira is reborn. And Kaneda rides into battle with just a laser gun and the knowledge that Tetsuo was once his friend, trusting that this will be enough to save him, willing to even leap into the heart of a cataclysm to try. If this does all lead to destruction, maybe something new can be built from the wreckage. Maybe something better - the birth of a new universe. One where The Suspicion holds no sway. We can dream.