I saw a lot of movies this year, thanks to my membership in the WGA and the flood of screeners that arrived at the end of the year. So, I caught almost all the big Oscar movies, and, ironically, few of them actually made it to the list. But, some did in what I'd consider over all a fantastic year for movies.
I've written a lot about how TV is the trend setting, innovative visual storytelling medium now, so consider a huge compliment to say that The Kids Are All Right had the character depth and easygoing realism of a great TV show. Tonally, it recalled Six Feet Under in its depiction of a family that has its issues, but loves each other and is trying to do good in a world full of temptation. The loose narrative leaves plenty of room for character exploration and the uniformly excellent cast makes it all work. Julianne Moore is fantastic here, reminding me why she was once my favorite actress out there. But, Mark Ruffalo really steals the show as the ne'er do well, but charming absent father. He's so charismatic and engaging, it's easy to see why the whole family falls under his spell. A really satisfying adult targeted film. This is one of those movies that people say they don't make any more.
8. Inception
Inception is one of the most visually ambitious films of the year, and features some of the most dazzling action sequences I've ever seen. It's the action movie as crazy videogame, stacking level after level of crazy obstacle on top of each other, and indulging in a mix of intense psychology and pure action movie joy in sequences like the snow attack or zero gravity battle. It's a great looking movie, with a phenomenal score. What holds it back from greatness is the reliance on a dour, tormented hero who can't express himself emotionally (i.e. every single Chris Nolan character ever). It's a film about dreams that feels so utterly controlled and without any random elements sinking in. That stops it from being an all time great movie, but there's so much good in here, I can forgive the flaws.
7. Rebuild of Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance
The second new Evangelion film didn't quite pull all its elements together. But, it was full of very haunting moments, and its finale was exhilarating and points to a bold new direction for the rest of the films in the series. This whole project remains caught between breaking new ground and paying homage to the past series. This one manages to strike a pretty good balance, and presents a nicely distilled version of the original series' psychological troubles. But, I would still point a new viewer to the original series over this version.
6. Toy Story 3
Pixar continues one of the longest hot streaks in film with their most emotionally potent film yet. Toy Story 3 is about 80% really good, fun film. The whole imprisonment at day care is funny and full of well executed set pieces and gags. But, it's the other 20% of the film that just emotionally anhialates viewers. There's hints of this in the opening, particularly during the videotape sequence, but it comes to the fore most notably in the inferno sequence, where the characters confront their own mortality and prepare to face death. Lingering in the fire past the point where it's a cliffhanger and to the moment where everyone accepts death, it's intensely harrowing. After crossing through death, they make it out to a new life in the emotionally overwhelming finale. For what's ostensibly a kid's film to be so emotionally effulgent is a real feat, and a testament to Pixar's skill.
5. Tron: Legacy
In a year of visually stunning films, none could match the production design and overall aesthetic of Tron. Updating the 80s style for the present day, everyone in the film looked intensely stylish as they moved through gorgeous environments, backed by the fantastic Daft Punk score. Beyond the fantastic look, the film offered a solid take on the hero's journey, definitely calling back to Star Wars at times, but delivering a story that satisfied. Its video game based universe might not make any sense objectively, but in the world the story it all hangs together for a visually dazzling, emotionally engaging ride full of really cool moments. I wish everyone dressed like the characters in this movie do.
4. Black Swan
Black Swan is another great Darren Aronofsky film about obsession and a character's desire to be the absolute best, at the cost of their sanity. I love the intensity of the film and the frequent surreal indulgences. Natalie Portman is fantastic, and everything in the film draws you into her mental world, which is less intriguingly ambiguous when everything wraps up in the end. It's a totally engrossing film, and one of the most refreshingly insane movies I've seen in a while.
3. The Social Network
The so called 'Facebook' movie is actually a rather classical look at the corrupting influence of power and money. But, thanks to David Fincher's ice cold direction and Trent Reznor's alien electronic score, it becomes something more. It's a deconstruction of a world that becomes increasingly separate even as technology brings us together. I don't usually love Fincher, but the really strong Sorkin script proves the perfect anchor, filled with biting humor, keeping him from drifting off into the excess darkness of some of his other works. This is a great example of two auteurs coming together to make one great film.
2. Runaway
This Kanye West film wasn't a feature, but it demonstrates a wonderful understanding of what film can do as a medium, an audacious half hour full of incredible visuals and strange ideas. The film throws back to European art cinema motifs, with a portentious symbolic storyline that recalls Fellini, and a strangely mannered acting style that is at once alienating and intriguing. But, combined with an incredible soundtrack, it becomes a really unique package full of amazing moments, like the opening slo-mo shot of Kanye in front of a fiery explosion, or the final Phoenix ascent. So many films fail to make use of true visual storytelling, this one is a consistently riveting experience, one that lingers with me far more than most traditional features.
1. Enter the Void
Speaking of experiences, Enter the Void is attempting something entirely different from virtually any film made this year, or any other year. Gaspar Noe isn't telling you a story about someone else as he is in making you feel and experience things. The movie's title is a command, you must enter the void, and by the end of the film, you'll have passed through death and rebirth and experienced a dizzying array of images and sounds. At times, it's an assault, at times it's soothing and beautiful, this movie did things that no other film ever has. I think it's less cohesive and emotional than Irreversible, but it's just as technically dazzling and has more moments of abstract transcendence than Irreversible did. Watching the final half hour or so, in which the camera winds its way through Tokyo's sky before settling in a hotel to watch a variety of couples have sex, you reach a total altered state, and what could be vulgar becomes absolutely beautiful. This film is an experience, and I'd love to see more filmmakers approach the medium like Noe does. Film can be a great narrative medium, but it can also be so much more, and this film shows you that.
It's interesting to write about Rebuild of Evangelion as an American viewer since, what I'd consider one of the biggest film events of the year happens in a weird sort of vacuum. There's no hype for the film coming out, it just shows up online and you roll from there. Normally with a big franchise film, you have that collective rush of anticipation, but not for this one!
As longtime blog readers know, the Evangelion series and its subsequent film followup, End of Evangelion, were personal favorites of mine. However, the notion of 'rebuilding' the series to make a more coherent version seems to run against every strength of the series proper. The first Rebuild mostly revisited territory from the series in a slightly more focused way, this one branches out into new stuff, and generally succeeds. It rambles a bit along the way, but ends with a transcendent scene that makes up for most of the problems along the way and opens the door to something radically different in the final two films.
The first Rebuild film expertly focused on Shinji's internal struggle to deal with the duty thrust upon him, his father's expectations and his duty to the world. This one branches out a bit more, into an ensemble piece focusing on a loose love triangle between Shinji, Rei and Asuka, as they each struggle to reach out beyond their own issues and form connections with others. That's the emotional core of the film and it works really well.
However, it takes a little while to get into that. The opening introduces new character Mari, who doesn't do that much to distinguish herself in the film. She feels like a somewhat unnecessary plot device, though I'm hoping her larger purpose will become clear in the next films. She's a much more competent, seemingly untroubled pilot, and there's potentially interesting material in there, contrasting her carefree devotion to duty with the other kids' trouble adjusting to their role. But, without underlying emotional traumas to define her, she's out of place in the show's solitary universe, and her flitting in and out of the narrative means that she remains just a surface cool, not a fully developed character.
Once we get back to the main character, there's some strong material introducing Asuka, but it takes a while to really get going. One of the problems with watching the film version of the story as opposed to the TV series is that digressions feel much more out of place. A scene like the trip to the aquarium works better in a TV format, where you expect new stuff to happen every episode. Here, it didn't feel like the best way to forward the character relationships. I liked elements of the scene, but in general, it felt like there were a few too many goofy elements in the early going and not enough substantive character interaction.
Asuka was always my favorite character during the series, and I think she fairs pretty well in the film translation. The essence of the character is transferred, and you still get a sense of her relationship with Shinji. However, it was frustrating to lose some of the intense personal examination we got during the series. One of my favorite moments in the show is when Asuka is sleeping with Shinji and says “Mama,” the first moment when her tough exterior breaks and Shinji can see her vulnerability. The scene where they sleep together here works, but not as strongly as the original.
That raises the question of the artistic intention behind this project. Is it better to have something different than the series, even if it's not as good, just because the series already exists and we don't need to see it again? The moments that are taken directly from the series often don't play as well because they don't have the context of the series.
It's also frustrating to see the continued focus on exploitative angles and frequent random nudity for no apparent reason. It always felt awkward during the show to have fourteen year old characters depicted naked, and that continues here. It can work, as in the moment near the end of the show where Asuka sits in a bath tub depressed, but that's a moment that's about her character, not the audience being given an invitation to leer, and there's too many of those moments in this film.
The story picks up quite a bit once we get to the middle section of the film where Shinji and Asuka become a 'married couple,' and he plays the woman to all the women in his life. It's an interesting flip of typical gender roles, and I like the way that the simple act of cooking makes Misato, Asuka and Rei reconsidering their own cold attitudes towards the world. Asuka's jealousy is well played, she thinks that she's special when he makes food for her, but when she sees him serving Rei, she gets angry. I like that plot beat because it resonates with the way that small routine things can build up a close relationship, and a kind of possessiveness.
The Asuka/Shinji relationship in the series was an absolute favorite of mine, and we see hints of it here. It's very sweet when she is cooking, trying to reach out to Shinji in the same way he reached out to her. Shinji himself seems more uncertain. In the series he was always torn between women who represented various things to him, usually riffing on the desire he feels for his absent mother. Here, he seems more interested in his father than any female relationship. It feels like he's too damaged to open himself up to that kind of relationship with someone.
Rei's arc here is particularly interesting. After being saved by Shinji, she makes a conscious effort to open herself up and bring people together. She's the only person who can see how damaged both Shinji and Gendo are, and decides that she can use food to bridge the gap between them. Her decision to cook, rather than take the pills she'd typically taken, is an attempt to become more than just an Eva pilot, to become a person. The scene where she has dinner with Gendo is one of my favorite in the film, particularly the way Rei is juxtaposed with Yui.
The whole cooking plotline is a great example of the film bringing something new to the mythos. In the series, most of the characters wallowed in their own troubles, and made no effort to reach out. Here, they all make an effort, and for most of the film, things are actually fairly sunny. People are trying to define themselves beyond just their role within NERV, and to claim actual personal lives.
Of course, it all comes crashing down in the film's final act. The sequence with Asuka trapped in the malfunctioning Eva kind of worked, but didn't play anywhere near as visceral as the similar sequence in the series. Part of the reason is that in that moment, Asuka's story became subservient to Shinji's. I wanted to feel what she felt, and perhaps reprise one of the series' greatest sequence, the attack on her mind from Episode 22. Some of that subjective stuff with her may be dealt with in the next films, but I wanted to feel it here.
Instead it becomes another ploy in the battle of wills between Shinji and his father. The food based reunion is off, and instead their relationship totally breaks down. I loved the visual of Unit 01 standing on top of the pyramid, raging at NERV below, but the moment as a whole didn't totally work.
What did work beyond all measure was the final action sequence, in which Shinji reaches into the heart of an angel to try to save Rei. The reason this sequence worked so well was that it was one of the first times that the film abandoned literalism and moved into psychological subjectivity. The premise of the series never made much sense on a literal level, but as a Freudian psychological excavation, it's riveting. But, my biggest problem with the films prior to this, was that they never reached that transcendent place of pure subconscious, at least not until this final scene.
Shinji tears through the complex, then, as music echoing “Komm Susser Tod” from End of Evangelion starts to play, Shinji plunges into the angel, and the film becomes pure psychological vision. I love the visual of Shinji going through the tunnel of light, trying to reach Rei, who's alone in the darkness. At the same time, outside debri swirls and the sky opens to the Third Impact. It's a moment of pure visual poetry, like the best of End of Evangelion, and Shinji's dive into the abyss is the rawest emotional moment in the films to date, the first sequence that comes close to matching the series at its best.
If the last scene wasn't so strong, I'd classify the film as something of a disappointment. But, with that last scene, it opens up a whole new array of storytelling possibilities, and is evidence that Anno can still do the kind of intense subjectivity that made End of Eva such a great success. Hopefully that will be used more in the next two films.
What's particularly interesting is the final coda scene with Kaworu, which continues the idea from the end of the first Rebuild that this set of films isn't so much a restart as it is a continuation of what started in the first Evangelion. I'm thinking it could be a loop set to repeat until the characters finally become happy and resolves their issues. The first run through ended in an apocalypse and Shinji's personal transcendence (the series), the second ended in apocalypse, but hope that the Eva would still be out there. Perhaps this time the characters will integrate themselves and truly succeed. At least they are trying.
I'm not sure that interpretation will ever become more than subtext, but I love it, and when Misato said this is happening, just like fifteen years ago, I immediately jumped to the release date of the series. This film doesn't prove or disprove the sequel theory, and I'm still believing it.
I'll have to give the film another look before passing final judgment, but right now I'd call it mostly successful with an absolute stunner of an ending. But, it still can't match up to the best of the series or End of Eva. I want to see the more experimental Anno back in the next film. Let's hope he's still got something at End of Eva level in him.
10. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button This film succeeds both in spite of and because of its excess. At almost three hours, it’s about 20 minutes or a half hour too long, there’s a lot of material that while interesting in and of itself distracts from the film’s core. The center of the film is the relationship between Benjamin and Daisy, and that works wonderfully. The two actors are great as they deal with the frustrating impossibility of being together, as well as the joy of the brief moments when their lives overlap and they can be together. That stuff all works wonderfully, the material surrounding it ranges from strong to distracting. The old age Benjamin stuff works well, but goes on too long, and I found the constant cut backs to the present day framing story distracting. But there’s a haunting magic to the final hour or so that few films can match. I think it’s simultaneously been over and underrated by the film critic world at large, but it’s certainly a top 10 worthy film.
9. Wall-E Pixar’s second best film (behind only Toy Story 2) is a remarkable piece of visual storytelling. Drawing on the visual language of silent comedy, the film is a cautionary tale about the world we live in, as well as a touching romance, and galaxy spanning sci-fi story. There’s moments of such pure joy in the movie, it’s more exuberant and exciting than anything else this year. I think the film does dip in quality a bit in its more conventional second half, but that’s only because the first half is so strong.
8. Synecdoche New York Charlie Kaufman’s distinct cinematic voice goes in a more extreme direction than ever before in this film. I think it’s one of the best films of the year, but also extremely flawed in many ways. The second half goes rather off the rails, repeating the same beat over and over again, but the first half is uncanny in its ability to create a really unnerving vision of everyday life. There’s moments that are just disturbing, and the passage of time serves to disorient you in interesting ways. There’s very little difference between dream and reality here, is it a surreal world or are we experiencing the psychotic mind of the film’s protagonist? Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. The film is an experience, and I’ll definitely give it another look when it turns up on DVD.
7. The Wrestler It’s less ambitious than the previous three films, but The Wrestler still stands out for its ability to make the everyday life of its protagonist into an epic struggle as large as anything on screen. Cinema can do so many different things, create so many different moods, and put you in different worlds. Most films you talk about in the context of world building are fantasy or sci-fi movies, but Aronofsky is as precise with his details as a Peter Jackson or George Lucas. The choice of music and props places you in this guy’s life, in the ever-growing distance from his glory days. It’s a really well made story that turns everyday life into something huge and meaningful.
6. The Dark Knight I still have strong feelings against Batman Begins, but this film won me over, primarily due to the chaos incarnate performance of Heath Ledger as The Joker, but also Aaron Eckhart’s virtuous and troubled Harvey Dent. It’s an epic summer blockbuster done in the style of a 70s crime film, and the fusion really works. I don’t think all superhero films should have the self-seriousness of this one, but it works here. The story is epic, it doesn’t always make sense, and there’s some issues with the ending, but the overall takeaway is pretty phenomenal.
5. My Blueberry Nights Yeah, there’s a lot of haters out there on this one. Even I will concede that it’s not at the level of Wong Kar-Wai’s other films, but there’s still wonderful moments that no one else can create. Wong Kar-Wai uses a different cinematic language than everyone else, and I love the chance to dip into his world for a while. I think he got a bit lost trying to capture some imagined idea of Americana, but there’s a great romanticism to the film, and some of the most beautiful images captured on film this year. And I still love the voiceovers that everyone else called pretentious or overwrought. Just get lost in the movie and then they’ll make sense.
4. Rachel Getting Married Like The Wrestler, this film uses a ‘realist’ handheld aesthetic, but still manages to turn everyday events into consistently memorable film moments. It’s one of the most exciting and energetic films of the year, ably shifting from deep emotional moments to the simple joy of being together with everyone you know for a wedding. That’s what life is like, it’s not one tone, there’s a lot of emotion inherent in every experience, and we run the full gamut here. Great stuff.
3. Let the Right One In Vampires have so much metaphoric resonance. On some level, we all exist as drains on the people around us, and the mix of violence and sex inherent in their bite has fueled millions of romances. This film de-dramatizes the traditional vampire narrative and uses it as a way to connect two isolated teenagers in Sweden. Visually, the snowcovered landscapes of the town are amazing, creating this incredibly stark world for everything to happen in. The relationship between the two kids is perfectly realized, and so subtle. It’s not played as a horror story, it’s just these two peoples’ lives, and there happen to be horror elements there. Things happen in a dreamy almost slow motion cadence, and that pace helps draw you in and lets you get lost in the film’s world. It’s one of the best horror movies I’ve ever seen.
2. Rebuild of Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone This is a hard film to categorize. Is it something new? Is it a remake? Is it a sequel? I think to some degree, it’s all three. It’s a more focused, emotionally clear take on the series’ first six episodes, and it was one of the most exhilarating, emotional experiences I had with a film in 2008. It doesn’t reach the heights of End of Evangelion, but it does a great job of clearing up some of the strange logic issues the series had, and making the emotional arcs a lot clearer early on. I don’t think it replaces the series, but it’s a great supplement, and if I had to start someone with the show, I might just show them this movie first. The animation was beautiful, and the final moments of the film are as haunting a closing as anything on this list. I can’t wait to see where they go with Rebuild 2.0.
1. Australia This is a film that didn’t get much love from the critical community or audiences, and it baffles me why. No film was a more absorbing emotional experience for me this year than this one. Baz Luhrman has an uncanny ability to create signature movie moments, building the images and music together to sublime emotional crescendos. It was three hours, but still zipped by, and even though the “two films in one” structure meant there was a slight drag in the middle, I was riveted for the vast majority of this film. I don’t think it had the deepest characters or most challenging narrative, but emotionally, the film hit me like no other, and that’s what the best movies do.
2008 hasn’t been the best year for film, but it’s still got a few days to impress me with something great. But, looking ahead to 2009, we’ve got some potentially fantastic films on the horizon.
11. The Box - I’m one of the few defenders out there for Richard Kelly’s madly ambitious previous film, Southland Tales. It’s an undeniable disaster, a beautiful one in a lot of ways, but it’s not the kind of film that’s going to make it easy to find funding for your next one. So, he’s scaling it down for a film that’s described as a feature length Twilight Zone episode. I’m hoping that this film doesn’t sacrifice the idiosyncratic voice of his previous films in attempting to atone for the wackiness of Southland Tales. The premise has potential, and the Arcade Fire scoring the film is a great sign. We’ll see how it goes.
10. Thirst - The new Chanwook Park film has been getting some crazy buzz over in Korea, notable largely for the apparently extreme nudity required for the lead actress. I enjoyed Park’s recent “I’m a Cyborg,” but he hasn’t come close to the heights of the Vengeance Trilogy in either of his two recent projects. Is he getting back in the game here? Oldboy is one of the most ecstatic pop films of the decade, and if he could recapture some of that energy, we could have another classic on our hands. And, vampires are hotter than ever, so he should at least have an audience for the film.
9. Cleo - I don’t know if this one will actually make it out in 2009, but if it does, I’ll be right there to see it. Soderbergh is one of the toughest filmmakers to love because his films have very little throughline. He jumps from genre to genre, and just keeps making new and different stuff. I really like some of his films, and the notion of him making a musical based on Cleopatra’s life came out of left field. But, I really like musicals, particularly wackier ones, and this one sounds pretty out there. I’m sure it will divide audiences, but I’m excited to see what Soderbergh comes up with.
8. Public Enemies - Much like The Box, Public Enemies will have the onus of having to atone for a previous “failure,” in this case, Michael Mann’s masterful Miami Vice. Vice got a pretty poor reception when it came out, but thankfully got some year end love, and I think history will see it as a minor masterpiece. I don’t think a better film has been released since Vice came out, and I also think that the film represented a huge step for Mann, moving away from a narrative based cinema towards a more impressionist emotional film construction. Will Public Enemies follow? It’s hard to say right now since no footage has leaked. Certainly the subject matter doesn’t seem like something that demanded another film telling, but Vice seemed utterly redundant and turned out to be so real and emotionally vital. The cast on this one is fantastic, and I’m confident Mann will make the movie work.
7. Avatar - James Cameron’s been out of the narrative filmmaking game for a long time, but Avatar sounds like a worthy return. He’s created some of the most enjoyable and filmically satisfying popular cinema of all time. Both Aliens and Terminator 2 are pretty much flawless blockbuster films, managing to combine real emotion and interesting themes with all the action. Avatar is wrapped up in the 3-D element, but I just hope that he keeps the story and emotion present. He’s been away from filmmaking for too long, hopefully he’ll come back strong.
6. Where the Wild Things Are - Spike Jonze’s previous two films were both fantastic, evidencing an emotional depth that wasn’t present in his music videos. I wasn’t thrilled hearing that he was adapting Wild Things for his next film, but reading that lengthy interview with him at Aint-it-Cool, and seeing the initial photos, I’m much more excited. The images look so soulful and emotionally resonant, if the film can match that, it’s going to be quite an experience. And hopefully it won’t take Spike seven years to get his next film done.
5. Watchmen - I have really mixed feelings on this film. On the one hand, it is really cool to see the slavish attention given to realizing Alan Moore’s world on screen, and I’m sure there’s going to be myriad cool moments in the film. But, at the same time, the book is so perfect, and so intrinsically tied to the comic book medium, it’s hard to see what the film adaptation could add. Even if it’s like the Sin City movie and functions as a perfect recreation of the book, what purpose does it serve? Perhaps its purpose is just to entertain us, no more, no less. And, I’m sure I’ll get plenty of entertainment from the film. But, as you enjoy it, just remember, the snake god Glycon frowns on you. I wish everyone who saw Watchmen would check out Promethea, or the documentary “The Mindscape of Alan Moore” to get a better idea of what Alan Moore is really interested in.
4. Inglorious Basterds - I’ve loved every film Tarantino has made so far, and this one sounds like a hugely ambitious, really fun take on the war film. The script reviews make it sound great, and the cast is fantastic, particularly the presence of Maggie Cheung, back on the screen after a lengthy absence. I loved Kill Bill, and really enjoyed Death Proof, but I do hope this film captures some of the narrow emotional focus of Jackie Brown. All of Tarantino’s films have more emotional investment than most people give him credit for, Kill Bill is a lot more than just b-movie homages, the violence is also about revealing Beatrix to us. But, nothing in his oeuvre can match the simple emotional pleasure of watching Pam Grier and Robert Forster circling around each other. How wil Basterds wind up? I guess we’ll find out soon.
3. Rebuild of Evangelion 2.0: You Can(Not) Advance - The first Rebuild of Eva was a great movie, a variation on the series that clarified and focused the narrative into a more cohesive finished product. Rewatching the film, I saw a lot of interesting stuff, but my first reaction was slight disappointment, that the film stuck so closely to the original series. Judging from the info and trailer for 2.0, there’s going to be some big changes here, and I’m eager to see how Anno and co. evolve the narrative and make it work in a new form. I’m also curious to see if the idea of the new films as a kind of sequel/cyclical narrative with the original series is developed further. Plus, we’ll get the entrance of my favorite character from the series, Asuka. Will Anno take things to that tripped out place End of Eva dwelled in? The first Rebuild gives us an idea of what the project will be, but this is the one that blazes a whole new trail. I just wish I could see the film in a theater, not on a bootleg download.
2. The Tree of Life - A new Terence Malick film only four years after his last? That’s unprecedented. The actual story of Tree of Life remains kind of unclear. It’s either about three men in the 1950s, or about a minotaur at the dawn of time. Hopefully, it’s both. Either way, Malick is such a singular voice, I’m sure he’ll manage to make any subject matter into something magical and beautiful. The New World is one of the best films of the decade, and he makes films in a different language than virtually everyone else out there. He understands film as a medium, and the unique things that film can do more than any other director, he constructs moments of astounding beauty and emotion that linger long after the film is over. People may have had trouble with The New World, but history will vindicate it as a masterpiece. Hopefully this new one will match it.
1. Enter the Void - I’ve been waiting for this film for four years, ever since I first saw Irreversible. Irreversible is one of the most intense cinematic experiences you’ll ever have. The subject matter may have gotten the attention, but for me, it was the amazing craft that really made the film. The one take shots are unprecedented, and the film’s use of subtle CG is a perfect example of the new possibilities of effects. Enter the Void was described as an entire film in the style of the last 20 minutes of 2001, a feature length acid trip, and if there’s any filmmaker who can make you physically experience things with a film, it’s Noe. This will not be watching an acid trip, it will be tripping on acid. It’s a hugely ambitious movie, and I’m confident Noe will pull it off.
To complete my rewatch of Evangelion, I took another look at Rebuild. Watching it again, knowing what it is and what it isn’t, it was a more satisfying experience, and I think I have a better understanding of why the project was made in the first place.
In his statement about the project, Anno said that he wanted to make the story more accessible for people, to tell a story that everyone could enjoy. I initially reacted to that negatively, fearing that it would mean the loss of the crazy abstractions that I loved so much in the series. But, I don’t think that’s what he’s trying to take away, rather I think his intention is to shape the narrative into something more linear, and to clear up a lot of the things that aren’t really explained in the original. The original exists in a genre universe, where we just take for granted that Shinji can go to school one day and pilot Eva the next. That caused problems for me on the first viewing, I was asking these questions and wasn’t sure if the series would ever answer them. This film spends more time setting things up for the viewer, making it clear that Shinji is piloting this thing because he is the only one who will be able to do so. I know that’s because the Eva was his mother, but the new viewer would at least know that there’s some reason for it.
Similarly, a lot of little character things are made clearer. Characters question Gendo’s behavior more, wondering why he shows so little affection for his son. No one in the original series really wonders why he’s so absurdly distant. And, watching it now, the scene from End of Eva where he says he kept Shinji distant not to hurt him sticks in my head. He’s so cruel because he thinks it’s what Shinji needs, but that’s so utterly wrong. In my initial review of the film, I said it would have been interesting to look at the whole thing from the adults’ perspective, and I’d stand by that. I’d love to see more exploration of what’s driving Gendo, and to get more insight into his relationship with Ritsuko.
We do see the two of them together more here, and the groundwork for their relationship is laid in a way it wasn’t in the series proper. The revelation that she was sleeping with Gendo came out of nowhere for me on the initial viewing, clearly it’s being placed in earlier here. This also allows them to reframe the motivation on certain events early in the series. Here, we see Gendo and Fuyutski discuss a plan to bring Shinji and Rei closer together. This was likely to ensure that Shinji remains on as a pilot, committed to the project. So, Ritsuko’s decision to have Shinji deliver Rei’s ID card to her is motivated by that. But, it also is motivated by Ritsuko’s desire to bring Shinji and Rei closer together, so that she will have Gendo all to herself. That could also explain Ritusko’s uneasiness with Misato potentially having a sexual relationship with Shinji, though that uneasiness could also be common sense.
Having seen the series twice, and having a better understanding of the whole Lilith/Adam mythology, there’s a few changes that really jump out here. One is the decision to accelerate the revelation of Lilth, and the purpose of the Evas. In the original series, we never really knew what the angels were until near the end of the series. I don’t think we knew why the Angels were attacking until Episode 20 or so. Here, it’s made clear that the goal of the angels is to penetrate Nerv and instigate the Third Impact. Making the motivations clearer earlier is a perfect example of making the story more accessible without sacrificing the mystique. The original series had ambiguity that served a purpose and ambiguity that was simply not telling us what we needed to know. Here, most of that latter stuff, the ambiguity that had no purpose is gone, and it’s a lot easier to follow the narrative.
If anything, removing ambiguity surrounding the instrumentality project and SEELE’s agenda will allow them to focus more on the psychological makeup of the character, and use the overall narrative as a mirror of the characters’ own emotions. This film doesn’t feature as much subjective stuff as the latter days of the show, but it does delve into Shinji’s psyche earlier than the series did. Notably, the entire focus of the film is to tell a single story, so the psychological interludes are less wide reaching, they’re more focused on Shinji’s uncertainty about piloting Eva. We see him on the train and there’s also some weird transitions when he’s in the Eva. Perhaps the most interesting new addition is quoting Gendo and Yui’s conversation about “If he’s a boy we’ll call him Shinji. If it’s a girl, Rei” right after the first battle with the angel. It makes it clear that there’s something up with Shinji and Rei right from the start, and raises questions about her relationship with Gendo.
We know the answers to those questions that were provided by the original Eva. But, things are a little different here, and this viewing made me wonder what exactly is the nature of the ‘rebuild.’ In the final moments of the film, Kaworu appears and says that Shinji is the third again, evidencing a range of knowledge that goes beyond what he should have in the story at this point. Shinji being the third again implies that all of this has happened before, say, in the original run of the series. So, does that mean that Rebuild is not a remake, rather than it exists on some kind of parallel continuity to the original series, that it is an in continuity extension of that narrative.
Notably, the film does open with the red seas that are featured so prominently at both the opening and closing of the End of Eva. It creates a kind of looping effect, where you can move seamlessly from Shinji on the beach choking Asuka to this film. What Kaworu’s comment indicates is that he’s aware of the other timelines. Kaworu here reminds me of John a Dreams from The Invisibles, someone who exists outside of the timeline, and moves into time at specific moments in the narrative when he is needed to achieve specific goals. If Kaworu is moving into the ‘game’ earlier, that would lead to a massive restructuring of the narrative as a whole, he would change the world.
In End of Eva, we see Kaworu as one of the Lilith, the incarnation of Human Instrumentality, a being who exists beyond time and serves the purpose of uniting all of humanity into complementation. So, his knowledge of things beyond this timeline would be logical. He has seen Shinji move through different worlds, move through the live action world, he knows that such travel is possible. One could easily argue that this entire film, hell the series as a whole, exists during the process of instrumentality, it’s Shinji reliving a different series of realities until he gets it right.
It reminds me a bit of the ending of The Dark Tower (SPOILERS AHEAD). There, Roland reaches the Dark Tower, the end of his story and is flung back to the beginning, it seems like the story is on an endless loop. However, this time he’s got the Horn of Eld, and this one change in the universe will produce more, and help bring him closer to his goal. The Rebuild could be a similar experience, Shinji went through Instrumentality and wound up in a world that was all wrong. So, he’s gone back in and decided to start things over again. On the surface, it all looks similar, and events don’t deviate wildly. However, there are subtle changes, and the intrusion of Kaworu into the next film will alter everything. (END DARK TOWER SPOILERS)
Right now, that would be my interpretation of the film. This is one of those other worlds Shinji saw during End of Eva, and as the films go forward, they will shift more and more. Certainly the preview for Eva 2.0 seems to be radically altered from the series itself. There’s many different Evas, a new female character and Kaworu apparently comes down from the moon in his own Eva. It would seem that that’s where this project spins off into something different from the original, and, much as I enjoyed this film, that will be more exciting to see. Perhaps this film was so similar to the original simply to make it clear where the continuity diverges, and to demonstrate how malleable reality itself really is.
But, back to the film itself, and one of the central differences between the film and the series, the portrayal of Unit 01. In the series, we see Unit 01 reach out and save Shinji, the first evidence that it had some will of its own, the spirit of his mother. Here, we don’t see that, the Eva does have clearly humanoid qualities, but it’s not as emphasized. Instead, there’s a greater emphasis on Shinji’s relationship with Rei. I’m left wondering if she is still a clone of his mother, because Gendo seems to be actively pushing the two of them together. Perhaps that’s just the way he is, he assumes that what Shinji would want would be the same kind of woman he’d want, so he gives Shinji this clone of his mother to be with.
Alternatively, in End of Eva, we saw that Gendo’s entire quest during the series was to get back to Yui, a woman he adores and places above all things. Much like Shinji, he hates himself, so wouldn’t it make sense that he’d want to avoid Shinji and instead let Shinji spend time with his ‘mother,’ in this case with Rei and Unit 01. It’s twisted, but it feels like the kind of logic he would use.
So, the Shinji/Rei relationship gets emphasized more, played out as an Oedipal conflict with Rei in the middle. The only flashback scene in the entire film is Unit 00 going beserker, and Gendo going down to rescue Rei. There, we see the extent of his feeling for her, which is made physical in the cracked glasses. It’s only with Gendo that we see Rei happy, and Shinji spends the entire film trying to simultaneously please his father and Rei.
It all comes to a head in the final battle sequence, which is masterfully executed. I still have some issues with the film’s pacing, the way the more leisurely patterns of life from the series are compressed into a tight film narrative, but that final half hour or so is just brilliant, both from a story point of view and from an aesthetic one. The powerless city, illuminated only by a giant moon, and the colored flashing lights of the vehicles around. It’s pretty astounding.
Anyway, the battle sequence itself is the first moment where Shinji sees someone sacrifice themselves for him. It’s where Rei steps in and nearly kills herself so that he can live. In the devastating final moments, Shinji tears open the capsule, and asks her for nothing but a smile. The raw emotion of that scene undercuts all the possible triumph of saving the city. And, in that moment, he ‘wins’ Rei from his father, he proves his own manhood and makes the connection he’s been seeking the entire film. Connecting with Rei is given priority over his relationship with the Eva, a development that will alter the way the future films play.
The first time I saw this film I felt like there was a lot missing. Watching it again, after seeing the series, I realized that the original series expanded in my mind after watching it. There’s not too much from the first five episodes that isn’t here. That said, in shaping it into a film, the more everday flavor of the series is gone. You don’t really know how much time Shinji spends at Misato’s, or get a full picture of his school life. That stuff was more fully explored in the later episodes, once Asuka showed up, but it was there early too.
When the show was first made, I doubt they knew a lot of the ways the story would go. As such, the earlier integration of the Adam/Lilith mythology, and Shinji’s psychological stuff makes this fit better with what comes later. Regardless of whether it’s actually in the same narrative universe, this film is clearly a post End of Eva production, and much of my reading is informed by what I saw there. I’m not sure how a new viewer would respond, I’d imagine they’d like this more than the first six episodes of the series, but I think watching the series makes the story more epic in some ways. It lets you fill in the gaps between episodes with imagined stories, here, it’s all sealed up as a neat little package. It’s more satisfying on a lot of levels, but it doesn’t replace the series.
The big question for me now is what exactly will the nature of future stories be. The second film may cover anywhere from Episode 12 to Episode 19. The rest of the series’ first half is a generally lighter period, focusing largely on the rivalry between Shinji and Asuka and building up the relationships between the characters. It’s a generally happy period, that sees everyone’s synch ratings rise, and Shinji gain more self confidence. That tone would fit with what we see in the trailer, an emphasis on many Evas and all kinds of action.
But, the big question mark for me is the last couple of films. The end of the series is so devastating and artistically ambitious. Will Anno return to those same techniques, or will he stay closer to traditional narrative storytelling? I think it would be near impossible to top End of Eva in terms of emotional artistic filmmaking, but if anyone can do it, he can. I’d be interested to see an ending that does deal with what’s come before, and spins through a series of realities, through the series, through End of Eva, and explores the reason that this story, this mythos endures. I want to see Shinji tripping through instrumentality and finding himself led by Kaworu to look at himself choking Asuka at the beach. If any image encapsulates what I’d like to see with the end of the film, it’s that, an integration of the previous mythology within its own new work.
I guess my big question is the philosophy of the work. When Anno says he wants to make the new films clearer, does that preclude the sort of exploration that End of Eva did, or is it more about precluding the convoluted mythology surrounding the narrative proper? I’d certainly like to see a clearer view of Seele vs. Gendo, the role of the angels and what have you. I hope that’s what he means to clear up, and to keep the psychological stuff on top of that. For me, it’s the psychological material that makes Eva what it is. This film does a fantastic job of getting inside Shinji’s head, but I hope that the later films go as far stylistically as the end of the series and End of Eva did.
Of course, if Kaworu enters the timeline and alters it, this could be an entirely different storyline. The beauty of the many worlds concept introduced in End of Eva is that it would allow them to deviate into something different and still keep it thematically similar. A person is simultaneously their intrinsic core and the product of the world around them, the product of the version of them that exists in other peoples’ heads. So, it can all change and still all be true. This is a new film, but it’s also the same film, the same story seen from a different moment in time.
A year ago, I updated my list of the Top 20 TV Shows of All Time, and a year later, I feel like it’s time for another update. Last year, peoples’ comments got me to finally start watching The Wire, hopefully this year will get me into another equally great show. Here’s the list:
1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer 2. Six Feet Under 3. The Sopranos 4. Twin Peaks 5. The Wire (New) 6. Cowboy Bebop 7. John From Cincinnati 8. Neon Genesis Evangelion (New) 9. The Office (UK) 10. Angel 11. Freaks and Geeks 12. Arrested Development 13. Doctor Who (New) 14. The X-Files 15. Gilmore Girls 16. Battlestar Galactica 17. Mad Men (New) 18. Babylon 5 19. Friday Night Lights 20. Seinfeld
Why have things changed? Read on…
The Wire
This show definitely lived up to the hype. I’m glad that I was able to catch up and see the final season live, it was one of those that was so good, it felt like the entire week became structured around the new episode. It may have been annoying to go back to work Monday, but I knew that Sunday night I’d also get a new Wire episode, so things weren’t that bad. I can only think of two or three other shows like that.
Evangelion
If you’ve been reading the blog lately, you’ve surely seen my epic posts about this series. This is a show that raises questions about how best to assess what the ‘best’ TV shows are. The first half is a solid, entertaining series, the second half is one of the best sustained runs of any series ever. So, do I judge it primarily on that second half, or do I consider more of the whole? For example, I like the second half of the series better than Cowboy Bebop, but Bebop is more consistently good, and hence gets the higher ranking. Still, I really can’t stress how brilliant the series is, and I’d heartily recommend it to anyone.
Doctor Who
Another fantastic sci-fi show, this one also has some issues with consistency. The reason Doctor Who is so high isn’t because it’s always great from episode to episode, it’s because at its best, it hits me in a way that no other show does. It’s the combination of action spectacle and emotional impact that makes the series so successful. It’s like Grant Morrison’s JLA meets Buffy. It may have more flaws than other shows, but emotionally, it gets to me like no other show I’ve ever seen.
Mad Men
The early 2000s saw a rash of Sopranos knockoffs, about morally ambiguous heroes who were always dealing out violence. But, no show has captured what really made The Sopranos great like this has. It’s the incredibly subtle storytelling that manages to speak volumes without ever telling you anything. The show feels so sophisticated, so cool, and it’s interesting to watch real emotion occasionally break through the socially sanctioned way of behavior. It’s hugely ambitious and really entertaining, I’m thinking this one will rise a few more places before its run is finished.
Last year, I felt I had pretty much seen the best of what TV had to offer, so I was surprised to see a whole bunch of great shows on DVD this year. What else do I need to see? What are the other missing classics from my viewing history?
I just finished my second viewing of The End of Evangelion this week. While rewatching the series, I was most looking forward to seeing End of Eva again, and trying to piece together exactly what it was saying. My first viewing of the film left me pretty baffled. I loved what I had seen, but I wasn’t sure exactly what was going on at times. The emotional core stuck, but the narrative side of things was a bit hazy.
Watching the film again, I saw a work that does pretty much everything I want a film to do. It’s astounding in its simultaneous global scope and individual focus. The film makes it clear that in the grand scheme of things, our individual struggles are just as important as global wars and conflicts, that perhaps they’re actually the same thing. Shinji’s personal trauma makes him a standin for all of humanity, when he’s forced to choose whether to continue instrumentality or return to the way things are.
Watching it a second time, I felt like the film and the series’ ending were diametrically opposed. But, much of that is the tone. The literal breakthrough, followed by applause and a smile to end the series leaves you with this feeling of such happiness. Shinji is aware of the love the others have for him, and is, for once, at peace. The film ends in a radically different way, Shinji crying over Asuka in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. But, the brutality of that scene obscures the fact that both endings reach the same basic conclusion. In each case, Shinji actualizes himself, gains agency and is no longer bound by the rules of those above him. Throughout the series, we’ve seen him serve others, pilot the EVA to make them happy, so he won’t be abandoned again. He’s constantly wanted to run away, but when he’s given the opportunity for the ultimate run, the ultimate easy happiness, he passes and embraces the world in all its painful and beautiful reality.
But, let me track back a bit and discuss the film all the way through. One thing that really struck me on both viewings is just how fast the film goes by. Because the series took care of all the exposition, this movie is essentially a 90 minute climax, and as such, it just flies by. I was shocked to see that we were already halfway through the movie when Shinji got into Unit 01, it felt like 25 minutes at most, not 45. And, the backhalf of the film flows incredibly well. It just zips by, this may be the quickest 90 minute film to watch even.
The first half of the film has a few particularly notable elements. In my first review of the film, I discussed the boldness of the opening scene. Watching it again, it still makes me think. The goal of the first half is to reduce Shinji to his absolute lowest point. He has feelings for Asuka, but no way to express them, and winds up doing one of the sleaziest things possible. She is lying there helpless, utterly broken, and he sees her only as a sex object. It adds to the feeling of guilt he’s got for the rest of the film, and is one of the touchstones for trying to understand the oh so ambiguous final scene.
One thing that this viewing of the series and film clarified for me was the Ritsuko/Gendo Ikari relationship. The first time through, I got the impression that Ritsuko was supposed to have feelings for Misato, which is supported by a loose reading of the narrative, but knowing that she was meant to be in love with Gendo, everything makes more sense. So much of the series is about cycles, children unwittingly becoming their parents, and the relationship makes sense in that context. It felt like an out of left field development the first time I saw the show, but it’s clear that Ritsuko is trying to match up to her mother. She’s chosen the same job, and the same man. Much like Misato, she has followed her parent’s path, despite hating her mother on some level.
The turning point for Ritsuko is when Gendo chooses to send her before SEELE instead of Rei. It’s an echo of Gendo choosing Yui, and the cloned Rei, over Naoko. When that happens, Ritsuko realizes how much she’s messed things up with her life, and decies to turn on Gendo. However, in the end she’s betrayed by the ‘woman’ part of her mother, Casper in the Magi, at which point Gendo shoots her. It’s a pretty horrible series of events that happen to her over the course of the series. She poured her whole life into this project, and winds up betrayed by the person she loved most.
Why would she commence this relationship with Gendo? At least Naoko had the excuse that he was a different person before Yui died. The obvious, and most notable, reason is her attempt to emulate her mother, as well as a general self loathing. Perhaps she sought love from Gendo to replace the parental love she didn’t get from her mother. It seems that she was always a loner, Misato was her only real friend, and she oft lost Misato to Kaji. Perhaps Gendo initiated things, she does make reference to wanting him to take her like an animal in Episode 24. He uses her when he likes, and she doesn’t mind, because her self esteem is just that low. She masks it with sarcasm, but she doubts whether anyone could ever love her. Like all the characters on the show, she’s so alone, seeking comfort from anyone.
If I have one complaint about the film, it’s that too much time is spent with the three tech characters. They were there throughout the series, but weren’t particularly central. I think it works as a way to humanize the invasion of NERV. We get the sense that shit really is going down, people are dying and nothing can be done. It makes the impending apocalypse believable, but those scenes are less emotionally charged than the rest of the film. And, it pays off during the ‘Come, Sweet Death’ sequence later in the movie.
Misato dies relatively early in the film, but not before some strong action sequences. I love the shaky cam shot of her rushing down the hall, spraying bullets at the soldiers accosting Shinji. Her relationship with Shinji compounds a lot of the issues from the series into something a little heavier. In some ways, you could view the entire film as the process of disconnection from parents, moving beyond mother love to a larger world. In that context, it makes sense that Shinji wind up with Asuka, the only woman he interacts with in the series who isn’t either his mother or playing mother for him.
It’s a very confusing world for Shinji, and Misato doesn’t make it any easier with her mixed signals. She forms a family unit with him and Asuka, where she is placed in the role of mother. But, particularly early in the series, she is the irresponsible one. It’s Shinji who cooks and cleans up the house, she just drinks and makes a mess. Ritsuko questions Misato on this, her motives in housing Shinji. I think it’s primarily that Misato doesn’t want to be alone. This is a girl who was abandoned by her father and wouldn’t speak for two years. There’s deep, deep damage, and she tries to protect herself by not being alone again, by living with others and being outgoing and personable. In a lot of ways, it’s the opposite of Asuka. Asuka was abandoned and chose to become independent, to reject others. Misato embraces them as a way of keeping herself sane, but it’s a somewhat selfish process.
She has her own Elektra complex to deal with. She wants to get back to her father, and a large part of her attraction to Kaji is because he reminds her of her father. So, she probably just assumes that Shinji would want to blur the role of mother and lover. She doesn’t really understand parent/child relationships, not that any of these characters do, and that’s why she constantly walks the boundary between sexual object and mother. I think she really proves herself in the film, when she drags Shinji along and helps him to get back in the Eva. But, she also confuses things more with the ‘adult’ kiss.
It’s understandable that she’d try that, since nothing else is getting through to Shinji. Does it cross a boundary? Probably, for one, he is still underage. But, I think it’s also an example of her trying to give Shinji what she would have wanted at that age. She sees so much of herself in Shinji, she knows what it was like to be alone, and she thinks that it’s that kind of kiss that would get him going. It makes Shinji cry even more, but at least it gets him standing up on his own.
Speaking of bizarre mother relationships, the material with Asuka is easily the highlight of the first half. Asuka is my favorite character from the series. I find powerful female characters interesting for a number of reasons, partially because you don’t see that many. Typically the arrogance and striving of a character like Asuka would be male characteristics, while the uncertainty and timidity of Shinji would be female. But, in real life, I’ve seen more women like Asuka, who are powerful and totally committed to being the best. In romantic comedies, we often see this kind of woman cut down, told that she should really prioritize love over her career. Asuka’s arc goes in a more interesting direction, her purpose cut out when she is no longer the best.
It’s deeply tragic to watch her pushed so low by the end of the series, until she’s huddled in the Eva, bombs going off around her, totally comatose. Never before in the series has the connection between Eva and mother made clearer. She’s in the fetal position, floating in this womb like liquid, not wanting to face the world. She is scared that she’s been abandoned by her mother, that to go out in the world means going out alone and dying. This culminates in the fantastic moment where she repeats “I don’t want to die,” gradually growing from whisper to shout, and at the moment her incantation reaches its peak, she meets her mother in a hazy dreamworld.
Much like Shinji’s encounter with his mother in the series, the scene remains rather vague. The narrative explanation is that the Evas have embodied with the souls of humans, the pilots’ mothers. I don’t think that makes much sense on a narrative or logical level, but on a metaphorical emotional one, it’s brilliant. In the Eva, Asuka realizes that she is not alone, her mother has been with her, will always been with her. The knowledge that that love is there empowers to go back out and shed the umbilical cable. It empowers her to fight again. The synch ratio discussed during the series is actually the fusion of mother and child within the Eva. After the Angel attack on her mind, Asuka lost touch with her mother, her mind was clouded. Now, it’s back and she can go on a rampage.
The Asuka fight scene here is easily the best Eva fight scene of the entire series. Particularly later in the series, the fights became little more than place fillers, or excuses to engage in psychological interrogation. Only a few from the series stand out as exciting, but nothing matches this, the kineticism and raw emotional power at play. I love the way Asuka smiles as she soars through the sky, tearing the other Evas apart. It’s nicely presented as the opposite of her ‘defiling’ experience. Here, she shoots up a huge cross instead of being penetrated by a beam of light, and is united with her mother rather than divided.
And, the scene plays as a preview of what Shinji will go through at the end of the film. After her triumphant resurgence to reality, she comes down quickly. The power on the Eva runs out and the Evas brutally tear her apart. Few things are sadder than watching her pump away at the Eva controls, getting no response. She is once again abandoned, and left to die. But, the shots of her soaring through the sky, and whipping the Eva around still linger.
Then, after the movie is nearly half over, our ‘hero’ finally gets in the Eva and does something. I love that this movie was a huge release in Japan because it violates virtually ever rule of traditional film storytelling. The main character is an utter failure at almost every turn, most of the characters are dead by the halfway point, and linear narrative is totally abandoned in the second half for something much more interesting. When I make films, I frequently take a similar approach as Eva, using the trappings of genre to tell a story about a character’s psychological makeup. The combination of action and subjective psychological abstraction is very appealing for me. I’d like to see more films that got this into their characters’ heads, and stopped worrying about having everything make sense. Of course, there’s few people who can do this as well as Anno, he just makes it look easy.
The second half begins with the instigation of The Third Impact. For whatever reason, Shinji is chosen as the representative of all humanity, the one who will choose between instrumentality and the world as it was. He is given this mission because he is the pilot of Unit 01. The Evas always had a role in the instigation of Third Impact, and since Unit 01 is the only one left, it stands to reason that it would be the central figure in this drama.
Either way, everything kicks off when Rei turns on Gendo and merges with Lilith. Rei herself remains something of a mystery to me. What exactly is her motivation in the series? She wants to know who she is, she wonders what it is to feel human even as she becomes more and more emotionally connected to the world. A major turning point is her ‘death’ in Episode 23, and subsequent rebirth. She’d been in the Rei II persona for so long, she became more imprinted with humanity, more attached to Shinji. That’s why she sacrifices herself, and it’s also the reason she gives for abandoning Gendo.
Her meeting with Kaworu also plays a part in awakening her to her true destiny. She is derived from Lilith, she is the same as him, and here, she finally returns to what she was and awakens her true destiny. She is a fusion of Yui and Lilith, and in the end, she chooses her son over her husband. That’s an interpretation that fits with what we see, but her arc at this point transcends simple narrative logic. It works on visual and emotional logic, was Rei always designed to merge with Lilith? Perhaps, it doesn’t really follow up on what we saw from her earlier in the series. It may simply be that, as a cloned being, she’s the first and easiest to merge with the oneness of all things. She serves as a face for Lilith, the angel of death who appears to everyone as they pass into instrumentality.
I think the whole Giant Rei thing was motivated more by a visual intuition than a specific narrative reason. It works wonderfully as a way to visually represent the process of instrumentality. I liked the abstract psychology of the TV ending, but it can’t match the visual spectacle of the Evas forming the Tree of Life and Shinji confronting the giant Rei.
The structure of the second half is genius for me because it’s basically everything I like smashed up against each other. The arrival of Third Impact and Instrumentality is essentially a filmic depiction of humanity’s passage into the supercontext as described in The Invisibles. It’s a piece of cosmic experience, with visuals rendered wonderfully by Anno’s team. This is mashed up against intense character development, some of the finest work by Anno in the entire series. It’s pop avant garde. I want to make a movie this good one day.
There’s a series of confounding scenes with Shinji over the course of the second half. The sandbox scene that opens Instrumentality has a lot of notable elements. Again, we see a mother just out of reach, leaving young Shinji to prove himself by erecting the NERV pyramid in sand. The surrealism of the scene is enhanced by the pendulum like swing and the presence of film lights just outside of frame.
This bleeds into one of my favorite scenes in the entire film, the confrontation between Asuka and Shinji in Misato’s apartment. It’s a mashup of two previous scenes, the Shinji/Asuka kiss in Episode 15 and the scene where Shinji tells Asuka that Kaji has died in Episode 24. The kiss scene, along with the “Mama” sleep scene earlier is where we first start to really understand Asuka. She likes Shinji, but isn’t sure how to express it. What was subtextual there is made explicit here, as they argue about how cruel she was to him, and how unsupportive he was for her. Much of the psychological sequences in the film are about making what is typically kept inside and making it external. This is what Shinji could never tell the real Asuka, and it’s also the Asuka in his head preying on his worst fears.
A particularly notable line is when Asuka says that he’s asking her for help because he’s scared of Misato and the First Child. On one level, this is true, but they’re also each mother figures. Asuka is the only character who’s not a mother to him, and it represents growth that he’d seek help from her rather than retreat into the arms of someone who will always accept him.
I’ve often wondered about the true nature of Shinji and Asuka’s relationship. Does he really love her, does she love him? This scene, and the ending would lead us to believe that they do love each other, and are ‘meant for each other.’ But, both of them have so much internal damage, it’s virtually impossible to connect with each other. I love the intercutting of Asuka approaching for the kiss with their argument, a mishmash of memories and subconscious hallucinations all colliding against each other.
The scene builds to Shinji lashing out at her and himself in a display of rage unlike anything else we’ve seen from him. And then, in a shocking moment, he grabs her by the neck and chokes her. What follows is one of the most audacious music cues of all time, as the camera spirals around him crushing the life out of her, a soft rock piano starts up and we segue into one of the greatest cinematic sequences of all time. It might be hyperbole, still holding the high of experiencing the film, but right now I could make a strong argument that the “Come Sweet Death” sequence of this film is the single greatest sequence in any film of all time. The fusion of music, visual, emotion, character, everything is going at full blast, the world collapsing into Instrumentality.
The sequence begins by breaking down the image itself, much as the TV ending did. There’s children’s drawings, which segue for some reason into a quick flash of all the TV episode title screens. Notably, you can see the titles for TV Episodes 25 and 26, implying that they can co-exist with this film. It’s all part of the same story.
This leads into various characters’ experience of the passage into instrumentality. This stuff hits me on a subconscious level, it’s exactly the kind of thing I want to see in film. There’s something so beautiful about the Reis floating in and giving everyone exactly what they want to see before leaving this world, in a sudden bursting head explosion. It’s so sudden, the death, but it feels right. I love Yui floating in to Fuyutski, and Ritsuko appearing to Maya.
But, the best scene here is undoubtedly the Gendo Ikari confession. After all this awful, awful shit he’s put Shinji through, he reflects on the fact that he felt it was better to stay out of his life, that he’d only hurt Shinji if he was with him. As Asuka would say, “Are you stupid?!” Ikari thought he was doing what was best for Shinji by keeping him at a distance, but in reality, that’s where all his problems came from. If Ikari had been a more attentive father, and actually shown Shinji some affection, perhaps Shinji wouldn’t have been so messed up. And, perhaps Gendo would not have spent his whole life on a quest to be reunited with his dead wife. Maybe he’d realize that there was something to appreciate in the world that we live in now. I love the scene so much because it puts everything in perspective. We’ve seen Gendo as this unassailable villain for the whole series, but he thought he was doing what was best for Shinji.
Things continue with the various Evas impaling themselves with lances, in a way that turns the whole thing into something like a Busby Berkley musical. Concurrently, Rei is instigating the spread of instrumentality across the world, in a beautiful rise of green crosses.
The combination of these images and the music is sublime. The song starts off as a Carpenters like soft rock song, then segues into something that reminded me of ‘Hey Jude.’ Particularly with the review of episode titles, the sequence has the feeling of summation, of everything wrapping up and looking back with nostalgia on what’s come before. It’s ironic that this should immediately follow perhaps the cruelest act in the series, but it just works. At this point, the film is running on pure subconscious energy, and you’ve just got to roll with it. The song ends over a succession of increasingly frantic cuts, compounding moments of the series on top of each other. It’s hard to describe, but the whole thing is astonishing. It’s unlike anything else I’ve ever seen.
From there, we continue the journey into abstraction, via the cryptic live action sequence. It was made a bit less cryptic when I found the original, deleted sequence online. On first impression, it’s just a bunch of random images of reality cobbled together, juxtaposed with a voiceover from Shinji interrogating the nature of dreams and reality. To be honest, even after seeing the film three times, I find it hard to concentrate and really investigate the meaning of the dialogue that runs over the end of the film. I get the essence of it, but it works more as just another layer, like music, than anything that has essential meaning for the series as a whole.
My takeaway on the live action sequence is that it’s meant to parallel the sequence in the last episode of the TV series, where Shinji imagines an alternate world where he’s not an Eva pilot, where he’s actually just a regular kid and everyone from the series is in his dream. As they say there, there are many worlds, many possibilities. He may be an Eva pilot in this world, but it doesn’t have to be that way. There can be a world where he doesn’t even exist.
Watching the deleted scene, the substance of this becomes clearer. In the live action world, all the characters are still there, but they play different roles. Asuka and Misato are neighbors, somewhat antagonistic. Asuka’s relationship with Toji prompts Misato to speak with Ritsuko about the trouble of forming connections between men and women. Like in Episode 26, pieces of the characters survive in the alternate world, but they are also radically different. Here, Misato is jealous of Asuka’s love, so she knocks it, saying it’s fleeting physical pleasure, nothing really meaningful. As in the series, she and Ritsuko are both lonely, and cynical as a result.
Much of their discussion centers on the way that what men really want is a mother they can have sex with, and women are happy to be this role because it gives them security. It’s a cynical, Freudian interpretation of things, and somewhat ironic coming from two women who sleep with the closest thing they can find to a father figure in the series. But, it definitely ties into the themes we see at the end of the film, when Shinji finally leaves his mother behind and embraces the harsh new world of adulthood.
I think the deleted live action sequence is interesting, and I think with some trimming, it could have worked well as a supplement to what’s already in the film. The wonderful use of classical music in both cases would have worked nicely to bridge the gap between the abstract shots and the more character based stuff.
As is, the live action sequence is notable primarily for adding another layer of trippy craziness on top of what’s come before. What could top the visual splendor of Giant Rei remaking the world, well how about going from animation to live action? The ‘real’ world feels so alien seen from the characters’ perspective. I’d have to watch it again and pay closer attention to what’s said, but there’s a lot of discussion about the interplay of dream and reality. Our world seems to represent a colder, harsher reality than the more malleable world than Shinji lives in. There’s a meta comment inherent, Shinji exists as an idea in our world, he is not real, he is closer to a dream. Dreams live in reality, where does reality exist? That’s asked at one point in the film, and the best answer is it exists all around us. Dreams exist all around us, this is just one of many possible worlds.
This leads us back to animation, and the question of instrumentality. Shinji has fused wth Rei, quite literally, and now has to choose whether humanity should remain in instrumentality or whether things should return to how they were. In the context of the series, the AT Fields have been broken down, Shinji has to design whether he wants to rebuild them. The AT Field is a beautiful metaphor because it taps into something very real. We all put up walls around our emotions, it’s the only way to guard yourself from the hurt out there in the world. You have to steel yourself to survive in a world where people aren’t always nice, and don’t always care what you feel.
When you’re put in an emotionally raw situation, the AT Field is worn down, and seems to break. Think of Asuka in the Eva, being defiled by the light beam. There, her AT Field is penetrated and she can no longer look away the bad things all around her. The AT Field is what lets us go about, but it’s also what locks us away emotionally from others. It’s the Hedgehog’s Dilemma, discussed earlier in the series. The more you let down your AT Field, the more you can get hurt, but the more others can get in. The characters in this series generally err on the side of keeping their AT Fields up, and being lonely as a result.
So, you’d think instrumentality would be what they all want. But, in the film, it’s equated with the running away dilemma Shinji’s been dealing with for the whole run. Twice, we saw him walk away from his responsibilities with the Eva and choose to go out on his own. He abandoned his responsibility, and people were hurt as a result. What he’s realized is that his burdens exist for a reason, he sometimes has to suffer himself so that others can be helped. To embrace instrumentality would be an easy way out, but it would also be running away. To exist in a world blissfully free of problems means never being able to grow or change, it means never getting better. It’s a static existence.
My initial interpretation was heavily colored by The Invisibles and John From Cincinnati. Both of those series viewed the fusion of all humanity into a single organism as the ultimate evolutionary goal, the endgame of the species. The end of the series offered that as a possible interpretation, and I jumped on it. Part of what frustrated me about the film was that it rejected that option and instead condemned Shinji to a world outside of the singular existence, it put everybody in the supercontext, then tore them out again.
But, in the context of the film, it seems that instrumentality is not necessarily a good thing. It was engineered by SEELE and Gendo to accelerate human evolution, but it was an artificial acceleration, perhaps not what should have been done. The film implies that to escape all your problems in this reality is just another fantasy, it’s running away. So much of the series is about Shinji struggling with whether he wants to be alone, struggling to deal with others, so in a lot of ways, it’s an incredibly optimistic ending when he says, yes, I want to feel the pain, I want to live in the world and be with others, no matter the cost. That’s what he reaffirms to Kaworu, a massive shift in perspective from the way he was feeling earlier in the film, being dragged along by Misato, unable to move.
It’s notable that his experience of instrumentality is quite literally being inside his mother. Rei has the body of Yui, and in instrumentality, we see him fused with her, having sex with her. So much of his experience in the series is about trying to get to his mother, to rediscover her. In the Eva, he feels at home because it is her womb, he spends 30 days in there at one point, not wanting to face the world outside. It’s easier to escape back into the womb and shut everyone else out, to float in this endless sea of connection. In the womb, you’re never alone, your mother is always there and you’re safe. The instrumentality that Shinji finds himself in resembles that, the red liquid all around, it is an in uterine state.
Shinji’s decision at the end isn’t so much about leaving instrumentality, it’s about leaving his mother behind and being born into the world again. This is made clear when Shinji literally says “Goodbye mother” at one point near the end of the film. This all instigates another spectacular visual sequence, as an orchestral score swells, Unit 01 crawls out of Rei’s vaginal looking eye, and she starts to fall apart.
This leads to a flashback to Yui and Fuyutski talking about how the Eva will live on forever in space. That speech raised some questions for me, how does Shinji get from Unit 01 back to Earth, etc. But, that doesn’t really matter. Shinji has left his mother, and his role as savior of the Earth, behind. His work there is done, and now he can be born again.
Episode 26 proper ends on a pretty up note. There’s not that much of a difference between this sequence and the TV series ending. My initial impression of the TV was that Shinji had chosen to become part of instrumentality and merge with everyone, but you could just as easily read it as Shinji breaking through his self hatred and embracing the world around him. He moves out of the psychological world of the stage and into the larger world, where everyone around congratulates him. This conflicts with the titles, which claim that the episode chronicles one person’s experience of instrumentality, but perhaps the experience humanity has of instrumentality is to reject it. Of course, the notion of Shinji’s story as just one story among many conflicts with what we see in the film, where Shinji is making the choice about whether to proceed with instrumentality or not for the whole of humanity.
How can one reconcicle these conflicts? I think it’s hard to do so on a narrative level without a lot of fan wank. But, on an emotional level. Shinji’s climb out of Rei’s eye could be equated with the shattering of the stage and his emergence onto the globe. In the episode, Ritsuko says that “Pleasant things happen on rainy days,” the kind of logic that would be playing in his mind when he decides that the bad stuff is worth it. After all, in an instrumental world, there would be no rainy days, so why would Shinji have to worry about them at all. The way I see it right now, both the TV series and the film ending chronicle not Shinji’s embrace of instrumentality, rather they show his embrace of the world he lives in, flaws and all. He will not run from problems and pain, he will accept them as part of the human condition.
This is a beautiful moment, and it’s echoed in a beautiful narration about the Eva staying in space as a record of human achievement look after the sun, moon and stars have burned up. Everyone’s happy, the world is good, humanity will return and anything’s possible. But wait, there’s one more thing, and that’s where a lot of my difficulty interpreting the finale comes in. The film does a lot of juxtaposing of joy and pain, be it in the dour lyrics and happy music of ‘Come Sweet Death,’ or most notably in the emotion of the Episode 26 ending and the pervading mood of ‘One More Final,’ a closing scene that rivals Tony Soprano’s onion ring dinner for endless debatability.
Here’s one reading, what I’m feeling now. Shinji emerges from his rebirth experience in a lake of red water. Next, we see him on the postapocalyptic beach, lying next to a seemingly comatose Asuka. He’s made a monument for Misato, Rei’s giant head lies in the distance. The implication is that everything we saw in the film happened, things are still horribly messed up, and the people who died are, for all we know, still dead. So, why is Asuka back? It may tie into the fact that she experienced a similar enlightenment as Shinji earlier in the film. She met her mother, like Shinji did, and was subsequently empowered to go out and attack the Eva series. She does not need instrumentality because she knows that her mother was there all along.
So, maybe the end of the show was right, everyone did have their own instrumentality experience, they all were faced with the question of merging with the singular being or returning to the world. They say that Shinji is the only one who can make the choice, but if everyone else is inside Rei, perhaps they all have their own psychological trials, like we see in the series. Having piloted Eva, Shinji and Asuka are used to living an instrumental style existence, and are also aware of the false security and purpose it provides. They each want to get out of the ‘womb’ they existed in and return to the world as a whole.
But, why would Asuka want to do this? She’s been through so much awful stuff in the series, what is her motivation for returning to reality? Perhaps it’s simply the fire that’s driven her before. She doesn’t want to give up, she wouldn’t want Shinji to return to reality and show her up. So, she chooses to return to the beach, she knows that her mother’s spirit is out there, but she has broken the umbilical cord and doesn’t need to return.
This leaves me with a couple of major questions. One is why does Asuka have those bandages? Why are they like the ones that Rei wore during her first appearance on the series? One reading could be that this Asuka is a ‘clone’ in the same way that the new Reis were, that the original Asuka died, but a new body emerged, from the Lilith matter. You could also read it as Shinji bandaged her up when he found her, and he’s been sitting there waiting a long time for her to come back to life. He had time to make that monument to Misato and has been sitting in the world alone.
That interpretation would also make it a bit clearer why he chokes her. Their relationship has always been based on violence. It was usually Asuka’s verbal assaults on him, but as we saw in his mind, he fantasized about choking her, about really asserting his masculinity and showing her that he wasn’t the stupid coward she ridiculed him as. And, in the world he’s chosen, violence as dialogue remains a sad necessity. He can’t cut through the AT Field, he’s got to deal with it.
And, because they’ve probably been there a while, he’s finally worked up the courage to do what he fantasized about doing for a while. Perhaps he still feels guilty about masturbating over her earlier. In choking her, he’s trying to get out some of his guilt. And, maybe it’s playing into the mess of sexual fantasies in his head, the Asuka in his mind says she knows about his jerkoff fantasies and would be happy to watch him if that’s what he wants. Rather than do that, he gives into his fantasy about choking her, and showing her he’s a man through violence. Maybe that’s the only way he can get through to her.
Of course, when he does go to do this, she reaches out and caresses his face. This is the moment when he moves out of the fantasy world he’s spent most of the film in. There, he’s hard enough to choke her and she doesn’t respond. In reality, he is not that strong, not that mean. She just laughs at his attempt to be tough. This breaks Shinji, all the guilt and feeling that went away during Instrumentality comes flooding back and he’s left with the reality of the choice he’s made. He’s still the same Shinji, and she’s still the same Asuka. This is the world he’s chosen, it’s full of pain, but it’s also real. Asuka and Shinji may communicate in unconventional ways, but him crying and her saying “Disgusting” is about as close as they’ll ever get to “I love you.” In the end, this is the way things are, the world continues, and though Shinji would be the first to acknowledge how messed up he is, he’d rather be messed up in a real world, an adult world, than live forever in a regressive womb existence.
That’s what the film is ultimately about, Shinji’s choice to grow up and leave his mother behind. Things are tougher with Asuka than they are with any of the mother figures he encounters, but that’s the way it is in the world. He chokes her, she makes fun of him, that is our world, that is adult reality. Shinji has grown up, he’s not scared of his father anymore, he’s not subject to the whims of NERV. For the first time, he hasn’t just done what people told him to do, he’s made his own choice. He may be crying about it, but at least he’s crying because of what he wanted to do. The entire series is about growing up, and in the final scene, we see the conflicted feelings that come when one actually does grow up. It’s hard to reach out to people, it’s hard to live on your own, but we have to do it. It’s the cycle of life. As one world ends, another beigns.
