SUMMARY
When a intenerate animation director is hired to
complete production on a stagnated animated film, he gets more than he bargained for.
The
original director is missing, the staff is a bunch of psychotic incompetents,
and a ghost is inhabiting the studio.
To make matters worse, someone is
killing off the production staff one by one, preventing him from completing
the picture.
The director has his hands full.
DVD VISION TEST
VIDEO: A lot better than the Japanese VHS release.
The grainy, washed out look of the source is gone. There are no
noticeable pixels or technical
errors.
AUDIO: The
Japanese 2.0 audio track is sharp and clear, with no distortion or audio
hiss. As this is a dialogue based movie,
there is not a lot of need for surround sound.
EDITS: No edits.
EXTRAS: The Theatrical Trailer and English credits are all your gonna get.
WIDESCREEN REVIEW
STORY: Once again, Mamoru Oshii has given us a very bizarre
story. It's full of wacky characters, strange dialogue, and a rather scathing
view of movies in general, animation in particular.
ACTING:
Majority of the film rests on Chigeru Chiba's shoulders, and he
does an excellent job. His "Director" is calm, cool, and
very aloof.
I can't tell if the rest of the cast are
really good actors, or really bad ones. So much of this movie is
over exaggerated, that it's really difficult to determine if their goofy performances
are by design or by accident. Plus, most of the lines have been
redubbed, making the performance even harder to judge.
FAN SERVICE:
For all you film school students, you will spend hours picking out all the
references to different movies. Fans of Haruhiko Mikimoto will get
to see two characters he designed especially for "Talking
Head". Those who are familiar Oshii's work will recognize many
of the names of the "characters" in this movie, as well as the references
to companies like Production IG and others.
In
case you were wondering, Oshii's basset hound does make an appearance.
CONCLUSION
If Robert Altman had
been Japanese, I think he would have made a movie like "Talking
Head". While its no where near as tedious as "Stray Dog", it isn't exactly
as lively as "The Red Spectacles".
Mamoru Oshii's film is a
scathing indictment on the entire film industry. Through out it's
103 minute run time, he attacks producers, animators, color artists,
writers, George Eastman, color films, black and white films, composers,
sound technicians, and even Walt Disney. He even takes swipes at
himself, comparing a director to a "hitman" who's job isn't planning
the crime (anime), it's making sure everyone involved goes through with
it.
On a visual level, he uses many of the same tricks he did in
"The Red Spectacles". Continuity goes out the
window. Camera angels and POV shots are weird. People stand in
place instead of using a freeze frame trick, and so on and so forth.
Many of
Oshii's frequent collaborators make appearances in this movie. Actor
and Sound Designer Shigeru Chiba, writer Kazunori Itoh, composer Kenji
Kawaii, and many others. The parts they play are warped, saterical versions of
themselves.
"Talking Head" wasn't a bad film, but it
didn't bowl me over either. While I wasn't bored, I was glad when it
ended. The ending was a little strange, but it fit the over all tone
of the movie. I may have to watch it a couple of more time to figure
out where I stand.
Personally, I would avoid buying the "Mamoru
Oshii Trilogy" box set. Just because it has three movies and a
soundtrack doen't mean that it's all good. While
"The Red Spectacles" is a wonderful black comedy, "Stray
Dog" is a boring film (with a rather bland soundtrack I
might add). As far as "Talking Head" goes, it's a solid
"middle of the road" movie.
For the most part "Talking Head" will only appeal to cinema enthusiasts,
film students, or hard core fans of Mamoru Oshii. For the rest, stick with his
animated films like "Patlabor" or "Ghost In the
Shell".
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