AKIRA (1988)
Adaptations that bring stories from the page to screen before author has actually finished writing aren't generally a good idea. Whether it's something like Junji Ito's Uzamaki or any number of modern television shows there are various examples out there, each with varying results. Katsuhiro Otomo's science fiction epic would eventually be a mammoth six volume story, but the film was released two years before the books were complete. It really shouldn't work. Neither should condensing all of the source material into a film just over two hours long. However thanks to the author's obsessive artistic impulses the results are more than impressive and it remains a landmark in both animation and cinema. Themes might have been truncated and characters and story arcs have been excised but somehow it all feels just right.
Despite it being a gateway film for many in terms of world cinema and Japanese animation it's difficult to call this accessible. Essential, yes, but often dark and disturbing. The storyline is at times rather opaque beyond the familiar dystopian visions on offer. Akira himself has been re-written like several other characters, and the story has been restructured. Dialogue is cryptic and big ideas are presented as visuals first, narrative meditations second. But in spite of this the film remains a compelling tale of young minds trapped in a broken society, lashing out against the world and acting in ways that are often all too relatable. The grand science fiction set pieces contrast with a smaller scale drama about adolescent orphans, while the political conspiracies and maze like underground facilities are a backdrop for teenage angst.
Kaneda (Mitsuo Iwata) is the brash leader of a motorcycle gang who spends the nights racing through the volatile streets of Neo-Tokyo. His reserved but frustrated best friend Tetsuo (Nozomu Sasaki) plays second fiddle in this aggressive peer group. But during a conflict on the highway with a rival gang Tetsuo crashes his bike trying to avoid hitting a strange, seemingly paranormal child. He's taken away by a helicopter and it becomes clear that under the surface of his brittle post-World War Three society things are not what they appear. It's a world troubled by gangs, riots and terrorism while bureaucrats ignore these problems and worry about budgets for an Olympic games opening. But things are about to get worse for the citizens when Tetsuo realises he might have gained powers to become more than his usual self.
There's a lot to take in during what is essentially a story about an underground sect trying to discover what secrets are being kept by Colonel Shikishima (Tarō Ishida) and his scientific advisors. But by framing this story about extra-sensory perception, evolution and super weapons with an adolescent drama it's given emotional depth. It's also an effective anti-authority thriller as the military and the school Kaneda and his friends attend represent restraints that are to be fought against instead of mentors who deserve respect. Admittedly the Colonel is the third protagonist in the story and his goals are often sympathetic, but his employers and colleagues lack mettle. If the central band of hoodlums represent youthful rebellion then he is a struggling father figure.
He's the only decisive parental presence in the film, beyond the lacklustre efforts of obsessed scientists and the empty words of detached school principles. Which is appropriate for a story filled with visual representations of painful growth; of both the mental and physical kind. Perhaps this is all simply a metaphor for the dangers of letting younger generations become delinquents. Maybe it's even about drug abuse and also abuses of power. But perhaps it's also an action spectacle glittering with psychic powers and orbital lasers. These contrasting layers are what makes this story so compelling. Of course it helps that this is a visual feast painted with more colours and even more frames than are typically used in a feature of this kind. It's a technical marvel as well as a nuanced parable.
Originally it's said that Otomo had no interest in taking this story beyond the pages of the comic. But he was probably tempted to direct after offers to make what was, at the time, the most expensive film of its kind. The results speak for themselves in numerous sequences depicting explosive bike chases, exhilarating laboratory escapes, and violent mutations. Painstaking effort is clear during moments of body horror and a futuristic action. Tetsuo's journey from graffiti covered alleyways to vertigo inducing medical facilities (and later beyond the stratosphere) is always drawn with exception attention to detail. It's a visceral eye-popping extravaganza whether characters are deflecting military weapons or succumbing to stress induced heart-attacks.
Every element of the movie is given this extra level of thrill power, particularly the incredible music by to Shōji Yamashiro. The use of chanting Japanese theatre voices and Indonesian percussion stands out, although the use of organs is also incredible. By avoiding a futuristic score or something using the synthesizers of the time it lends everything a dimension that is almost biblical. As a result the pounding mental stresses of telekinesis and the existential dread of hallucinations can be heard, and felt, throughout. There are motifs similar to Godzilla from 1954 that give the sense of scale to the unfolding disaster. But there's also a sense of melancholy whether it's during flashbacks to times when Kaneda and Tetsuo were simply innocent friends, or during the aftermath of their conflict.
The film is well known as a tried and tested classic thanks to the way it balances the characterisation against all of the breathtaking artwork. Whether you view this sort of thing simply as a violent dystopia movie or as an animation benchmark it's always worth revisiting. It's not just a simple power fantasy or a cyberpunk action movie, although it can be enjoyed as one. It's easy to understand what it's like to be an isolated child just as it's easy to wonder about godlike powers of destruction. But it's a masterpiece because it also manages to examine these cosmic ideas alongside so many elements of the human condition. It's unlikely that something like this will ever be achieved again.
5/5
