The bumps may be a function of the translation; whatever the case, they do nothing to diminish the delights of this exquisitely textured film. A seamless blend of old and new animation techniques, with the characters rendered in traditional 2D and the backgrounds in vivid 3D (computer generated imagery), Innocence doesn't just reveal a wealth of visual enchantments; it restates the case that there can and should be more to feature-length animations than cheap jokes, bathos and pandering. It also proves the point that 2D animation remains a vital technology.
But never mind the techno-babble. What matters most here isn't the number of gigabytes it took to make the feathers on a seagull look palpably real. It's the way the camera narrows in on the bird's eye as if Oshii believed the answers to the film's questions might be found in the natural world and its brutalized remnants, in that solitary place beyond the machines.
In one of the film's most hypnotically lovely set pieces, a kaleidoscopic cavalcade featuring enormous animal effigies, grimacing warriors and shimmering golden pagodas, he also suggests that the past may offer up yet other answers. In Innocence past and present, ghost and machine jostle alongside one another, while the mysteries of the universe, seen in the swirl of cream in a cup of coffee and spirals of flying gulls, continue.
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