Mamoru Oshii - Speaking in Tongues Notes

The following at the references and notes for the essay, "Mamoru Oshii: Speaking in Tongues."

[1] I suspect the reason this metaphor comes through so clearly is that unlike most of the movie, it is based on a social observation rather than a spiritual intuition.  While Oshii may be perplexed about the ultimate nature of reality he has no doubts concerning human capacity for ignorant and pointless destruction.

[2] Smith, Huston.  The World’s Religions.  New York City, HarperCollins, 1991.  Pages 339-340.  Clearly there is more to theology than this in history, but for the purposes of our discussion it is a good definition.

[3] I do not like to psychoanalyze artists.  It gives the illusion of understanding what they are saying, or worse seems to explain it away through an account of mental states.  That said, the tenor of Angel’s Egg is completely at home with the expressions of a “sick soul” (taken from James’ The Varieties of Religious Experience):

“The world looks remote, strange, sinister, uncanny.”

“I have unreal hands: the things I see are not real things.”

When such fundamental symbols as God disappear, all that they were connected with, which is to say everything, have now lost part of their definition.  An important part.  They are changed so much that our emotions, those eternal watch dogs of our surroundings, no longer even recognize them, and it is clear that this movie was written by somebody who knows that experience from the inside.

[4] One feature I have no accounting for are the wraps on the man’s hands.  He starts the movie without them, but one appears on his left hand while he is sheltering the girl from the fishermen, and another appears on his right some time after they enter the ark.  Being a Christ figure they would seem to cover stigmata, but why appear when they do and only one at a time?  I have not even a guess to offer.

Also, I am aware that a popular interpretation of this figure is Noah. I do not find this in the least bit compelling.  While Noah does function as a precursor, a prophet who has been wandering around the world far longer than the girl, it feels to me more a clumsy attempt to impose narrative order where there is none. 

[5] I admit I appropriated this phrase from a humorous short skit by Terry Bisson, where two aliens, on discovering humans, cannot believe that, “Meat can think.”  Sometimes I think comedy is the better way to cause us to notice discrepancies in our thought than serious arguments.

[6] Despite my emphasis on Christianity in Angel’s Egg there are already several indications that Oshii’s thought was turning in a Buddhist direction.  When the girl is reborn it is to a track titled “Transmigration” rather than a Christian “resurrection.”  Similarly, the rows of statues on the God-machine are far more in line with Buddhist iconography than Christian.

[7] What is the relationship between this water scene and the girl’s at the end of Angel’s Egg?  They are not directly analogous, but they are not unrelated either; rather, just as how the girl’s development is condensed into the final few moments while Motoko’s spawns the entire film, Motoko’s small mergings here are stepwise “little-deaths” that are a prelude to the final enlightenment (which is the counterpart to finally “meeting” the water):

”Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” - 1 Corinthians 12:13

Above is the second half of the verse that is begun in the boat scene, and I am surprised Oshii did not use it as he fully embraces the visual of Motoko’s eyes wide open, recognizing herself as she approaches the surface (another element seen in early form in Angel’s Egg).  Nonetheless, it remains one of those interesting fusions of Oshii’s, that he has extracted this appropriate Bible verse and found its resonance in his new Buddhist narrative.

[8] People will notice I’m skipping a few details, and in this there are two things I wish to clarify.

First, despite discussing it at length I am not suggesting the tank stands for anything in particular in the spiritual allegory; we do not all have a “tank in our hearts” that must be defeated.  It exists here in order to demonstrate the depths of Motoko’s devotion as well as her ultimate struggle followed by seemingly-impossible victory.

Which brings me to the second point, and that is Batou destroying the tank.  So far as I can tell, this is a case where the metaphorical and the narrative are only loosely joined.  That is, I do not think that Batou’s help signifies anything special; he is there because the tank, having done its job, needs to be removed from the stage so the movie may progress.  If the story had wished to be closer to the spiritual journey, then Project 2501 would have intervened, but due to the plot it was otherwise indisposed.  It would have felt quite awkward for it to suddenly wake up and come to the rescue after letting Motoko get nearly killed; that Batou just happened to have an anti-tank weapon while also arriving just in time is already pushing our disbelief.  So like Oshii I simply skip over this, as I do not believe there is any deeper meaning to be had.