Ask John: Are Mamoru Oshii’s Films Pretentious?

Question:
Oshii is pretentious, and Tenshi no Tamago/Angel’s Egg is the ultimate proof of that fact. It’s an 84 minute intellectual and artistic wank-fest that offers no logical cohesive narrative at all, twists Judeau-Christian symbolism to the breaking point, and even Oshii flatly admits that he doesn’t know what it’s about. In effect, it’s everything “cinema” is and “movies” are not.

Don’t take it to mean that I dislike the film. I think it’s one of the most spectacular “film as art” experiments out there. But I refuse to believe that any film which presents us with characters that have no names, no defined purpose, and presents a Christ like figure as having destroyed a young girl’s innocence for his own selfish wishes while she sleeps means anything truly allegorical. While visually Angel’s Egg absolutely earns its’ merit, I’m not convinced about that thematically. If a film doesn’t have a recognizable meaning, its’ existance as a piece of thematic art is somewhat meaningless. Angel’s Egg is strong enough to exist and work as a piece of visual art, but unless I watch the film again and suddenly go “Eureka!”, I’m still going to consider this pretentious.

Answer:
Within the past few weeks I’ve coincidentally encountered the assertion that Mamoru Oshii’s films are pretentious twice. I’m not Brian Ruh, an expert on Mamoru Oshii, and I’d recommend that readers interested in an exhaustive analysis of Oshii refer to Mr. Ruh’s book Stray Dog of Anime: The Films of Mamoru Oshii. I have, however, watched a number of Oshii’s films, including Angel’s Egg, Ghost in the Shell, Innocence, Gosenzo-sama Banbanzai!, the original Patlabor OVA series and first two features, Twilight Q Part 2, Urusei Yatsura movies 1 & 2, and Avalon. So I do feel familiar with his work, and I do have an opinion on the question.

Webster’s defines “pretentious,” in part, as “making usually unjustified or excessive claims,” or “expressive of affected, unwarranted, or exaggerated importance, worth, or stature.” In effect, something that’s pretentious creates an impression that it’s greater, more important, or more artistic than it actually is. By definition, pretention is a comparison; in this case, a cinematic work that hopes to fool viewers into giving more credit than is deserved, and cinematic work that genuinely is significantly, substantially artistic. It’s important to emphasize that artistic importance is not the same as perfection. An artwork can be flawed, yet still be an important, influential, artistic statement. I’ll also argue that an artwork doesn’t have to exhibit an easily comprehensible narrative, theme, or meaning in order to be significantly artistic.

In my own perspective, anime titles like Ergo Proxy and Texhnolyze are pretentious. These works intentionally employ an opaque cinematic style in order to create the impression that they have profound ideas in the wings, or that they deal with erudite psychological or philosophical concepts that cannot or should not be reduced into simplistic presentations. But in reality, these series don’t have esoteric, intellectual statements to make, nor are they attempts to present a singular artistic theme to viewers. They’re not art for the sake of art; they’re atmospheric but superficial works that intentionally try to obfuscate and inflate their true value.

In Ghost in the Shell, Oshii lightly toyed with the philosophical uncertainty of defining humanity. Ideas including the fallibility of a “perfect” but inflexible system, the importance of a physical body upon humankind’s self-recognition, and the degree at which conscious autonomy becomes respected as living individuality. But these themes were merely suggested within the framework of a cyberpunk crime thriller. In Twilight Q Part 2: File 538, Oshii provocatively challenged the established belief in a benevolent, omnipotent god. Other Oshii works have been less provocative. The dour, methodical pacing of Patlabor merely emphasized the mechanical routine of daily life and the mundane existance of evil. (I suppose the especially complimentary could call that existential.) Angel’s Egg, the director’s most mystifying work, actually seems to be similar to his artistic experiment Mezame No Hakobune in the regard that it doesn’t have a singular meaning or interpretation. Angel’s Egg is literally art for the sake of art. It aspires to be nothing more than it is. The natural instincts of viewers virtually demand an effort to make sense of the film, but the film itself is content to merely present an atmospheric dreamscape peppered with iconography commonplace in the subconsciousness of much of the world.

In order to be pretentious, Oshii’s films would have to aspire to be more profound and artistic than they are. I don’t think that’s the case at all. The bulk of Oshii’s work as a film maker doesn’t strive to fool audiences into thinking that’s its artistic. The bulk of Oshii’s work as a director literally is artistic. Oshii’s work isn’t pretentious. Oshii’s work is what actual pretentious works aspire to be. I think it’s a mistaken and far too frequent tendency of modern observers to label any stylistic, artistic, confounding work “pretentious.” It’s as though only deceased artists and a select handful of universally recognized auteurs like David Lynch and Michael Haneke have earned the right for their works to be free from suspicion of pretensionn.

Works like the .50 Woman live action short and the Urusei Yatsura television series and first movie demonstrate that not all of Mamoru Oshii’s directorial works are stratified artistic statements. But Oshii’s brilliant and unique works like Angel’s Egg, Ghost in the Shell, Gosenzo-sama Banbanzai, Innocence, Twilight Q Part 2, Mezame no Hakobune, Red Spectacles, and Avalon are significant, highly artistic works. Some or all of them may be flawed, but that doesn’t extirpate their status as highly artistic works. Pretentious artworks are those which have little artistic value but try to convince viewers that they are highly artistic. Oshii’s films don’t try to fool anyone, nor do they artificially attempt to be highly artistic. They are highly artistic; therefore they are not pretentious. Pretentious films reside on the slope that leads from mainstream and unambitious works up to the plateau where profound, important, and truly artistic works rest. Oshii’s provocative works don’t tenuously grasp the edge of that plateau with strained fingertips. Oshii’s artistic works sit fully and comfortably on that rarified pedestal of cinema that is also high art. To call a film-maker’s work “pretentious” is to accuse the director of having little to say but trying to convince audiences otherwise. If we can’t consider Mamoru Oshii a film-maker whose work is genuinely artistic, important, and provocative, what film-makers can we say produce a body of meaningful work?