VEXILLE
October 27th 2008 21:39
Director: Fumihiko Sori.
Script by: Fumihiko Sori.
Producers: Toshiaki Nakazawa, Yumiko Yoshihara & Ichiro Takase.
Starring: Colleen Clinkenbeard (Vexille), Travis Willingham (Leon), Jason Douglas (Saito), J Michael Tatum (Kisaragi), Christopher Sabat (Zak), Kent Williams (Itakura), & Christine Auten (Maria).
Produced by: 2007 Vexille Film Partners.
Released by: Madman Entertainment.
Running Time: 110 minutes. Rating: M.
Robots have been a mainstay of Japanese manga and anime since either of these particular forms of media ever reached the attention of western audiences, just look at Mobile Suit Gundam, Robotech, Gasaraki and Appleseed to name a few where robots are a major feature. Often the robots in question are usually actually humanoid formed vehicles which are used to literally chew up the landscape in titanic struggles or one on one combats. Vexille is very much about robots but even though there is the usual fight scenes and carnage the focus is not so much on these aspects as it is in other robot based features and tales. No instead the focus is on the actual nature of robots, of the impact that they can have on society.
The year is 2077, and Japan has gone into complete and total economic, geographic and informational isolation from the rest of the world. It has been ten years since anyone from the ‘outside’ world has set foot upon Japanese shores let alone talked to anyone from Japan. All this is down to the restrictions imposed upon the scientific community in regards to the design, manufacture and creation of robots in particular humanoid robots. For the rest of the world these strictures were not so much of a hassle, their own robotics studies and development were well behind that of Japan. The Islands of the Rising Sun however opted to not sign the UN accords on robotics and instead moved into isolation, thus as had occurred in the years of the Tokugawa Shogunate Japan became a forbidden territory for outsiders and its own inhabitants were forbidden to leave or maintain contact with the outside world.
Yet despite being ‘cut-off’ from the rest of the world the wheels of international commerce still turn in Japan, robots are still a major commodity for other nations economies in a variety of fields ranging from stevedoring to security to even preparing your morning cup of coffee. In fact the rest of the world seems to be totally reliant upon robots and all of them are designed, made and delivered by Daiwa Corporation of Japan. A great irony really considering how Japan is almost effectively a world unto itself yet the world from which it has so drastically disassociated itself is so heavily reliant upon it.
Events open after a brief narration of the geopolitical nature of the world in 2077 with what seems to be a very clandestine meeting between various national officials from the US, the French, the Middle East etc all meeting at a palatial retreat somewhere in the Colorado mountains. The meeting has naturally been called by a representative of Daiwa Corporation, the sinister Saito who in his dress and mannerisms looks very similar to Hugo Weaving’s portrayal of Agent Smith in the Matrix (Do you hear that Mr Anderson...that is the sound of inevitability...). There is no doubt that such a clandestine little get together is to further the agenda of Daiwa and possibly overturn the UN accords that hamper Japanese research and development into cybernetics and robotics. Such a meeting also means that other people are curious as to what is going on, and if need be whether they need to take measures to crash the party so to speak.
Of course this is precisely what happens. A US watchdog organisation known as SWORD storms the palatial retreat in full combat mode, armoured units and armed recon bots are deployed en masse to deal with the various security measures that Daiwa Corporation may have employed in order to prevent any hostile incursions. It seems that the purpose of SWORD is to enforce the UN accords and keeping an eye on the activities of those who try to infringe them at any point. Ironically a lot of the technology that SWORD employs in pursuing its mandate is manufactured by Daiwa Corporation, which leads one to ponder how reliant can they be in the role on monitoring their opposition if their equipment and resources are supplied by the very people they’re meant to be watching?
Vexille is a very slick anime feature, I was immensely impressed with the CGI employed, it seems that the anime producers and directors have taken lessons and techniques learned in making Appleseed some four years ago and pushed things that extra notch upwards, improving the quality and feel behind an entirely CGI generated film. It’s also interesting to see the sparseness of what the film makers have employed in creating the various landscapes in which much of the drama occurs. For ten years no one has managed to set foot in Japan, not even the crews of vessels carrying goods in and out of the islands it seems as if they’re firmly sequestered in their vessels, their prying eyes kept away from the shores of the land of the Rising Sun.
Naturally much of the mystery within this film does centre on precisely what is Japan like after ten years of isolation from the entire world. And in this very facet of Vexille we get a truly interesting dichotomy of things, after the storming of the palatial retreat the audience is given a glimpse of the Los Angeles of the late twenty first century, a sprawling, shining metropolis that could have emerged straight from the pages of a fifties pulp fiction novel. We first see what has become Tokyo it is a truly marked contrast, the city that could probably be described as one of the major cities in Asia, if the not the major metropolis is nothing more than a simple shanty town encircled by a single vast wall with the headquarters and manufacturing compound of Daiwa Corporation situated out in the midst of Tokyo Bay connected to the mainland by three tunnels. And Mount Fuji and the surrounding countryside, the various other cities and communities, what has happened to them? They are simply no more…there is only Tokyo and its wall and wasteland beyond that imposing barrier. It seems that a lot has changed in the ten years since the implementation of the isolation policy, drastically so.
It is interesting to note that the director and writer, Mr Sori, had chosen a romance on which to be the foundation for this movie and I have to admit that the thought of this being the basis for his feature did not occur to me at all as I initially watched it. Certainly I was well aware of the romantic element within the film, the triangle between the title character, Maria the former public security operative and Leon, the man in command of the infiltration team dispatched by SWORD to enter Japan and discover what the heck is going on. It was fairly clear what was happening between them, but until I watched the interviews with the director/creator/writer the concept that the romance was the core in the story just didn’t occur.
My own feeling about it was that it was something of a morality tale in regards to the nature of hubris as well as the seemingly insatiable consumerism that makes up a large deal of first world societies, be they western or eastern nations. It is interesting to note that in the Japan of 2077 there is a far greater sense of community and solidarity than there is to be found in the US of 2077, in fact it almost seems as if the bulk of the outside world have lost a certain degree of their humanity without realising that this loss has occurred. Vexille and Leon live together, work in the same place and are employed by the same employer yet there is this distinct feeling that although this may be the case they are fairly isolated from each other, and in her own way Vexille can sense this lack, this emotional distance between her and Leon yet is unable to articulate it.
Its rather ironic in the light of certain plot developments within the story that those who have been dwelling in a ‘free’ and transparent society have lost something of their intrinsic humanness whilst those who have spent the last ten years living in Japan are in the opposite situation. What they face so much is not merely the loss of humanity but loss of self and existence. Vexille is definitely a movie well worth getting your hands on and watching, it is a finely crafted piece of cinematography that has all the key elements of a great movie.
Script by: Fumihiko Sori.
Producers: Toshiaki Nakazawa, Yumiko Yoshihara & Ichiro Takase.
Starring: Colleen Clinkenbeard (Vexille), Travis Willingham (Leon), Jason Douglas (Saito), J Michael Tatum (Kisaragi), Christopher Sabat (Zak), Kent Williams (Itakura), & Christine Auten (Maria).
Produced by: 2007 Vexille Film Partners.
Released by: Madman Entertainment.
Running Time: 110 minutes. Rating: M.
Robots have been a mainstay of Japanese manga and anime since either of these particular forms of media ever reached the attention of western audiences, just look at Mobile Suit Gundam, Robotech, Gasaraki and Appleseed to name a few where robots are a major feature. Often the robots in question are usually actually humanoid formed vehicles which are used to literally chew up the landscape in titanic struggles or one on one combats. Vexille is very much about robots but even though there is the usual fight scenes and carnage the focus is not so much on these aspects as it is in other robot based features and tales. No instead the focus is on the actual nature of robots, of the impact that they can have on society.
Events open after a brief narration of the geopolitical nature of the world in 2077 with what seems to be a very clandestine meeting between various national officials from the US, the French, the Middle East etc all meeting at a palatial retreat somewhere in the Colorado mountains. The meeting has naturally been called by a representative of Daiwa Corporation, the sinister Saito who in his dress and mannerisms looks very similar to Hugo Weaving’s portrayal of Agent Smith in the Matrix (Do you hear that Mr Anderson...that is the sound of inevitability...). There is no doubt that such a clandestine little get together is to further the agenda of Daiwa and possibly overturn the UN accords that hamper Japanese research and development into cybernetics and robotics. Such a meeting also means that other people are curious as to what is going on, and if need be whether they need to take measures to crash the party so to speak.
Of course this is precisely what happens. A US watchdog organisation known as SWORD storms the palatial retreat in full combat mode, armoured units and armed recon bots are deployed en masse to deal with the various security measures that Daiwa Corporation may have employed in order to prevent any hostile incursions. It seems that the purpose of SWORD is to enforce the UN accords and keeping an eye on the activities of those who try to infringe them at any point. Ironically a lot of the technology that SWORD employs in pursuing its mandate is manufactured by Daiwa Corporation, which leads one to ponder how reliant can they be in the role on monitoring their opposition if their equipment and resources are supplied by the very people they’re meant to be watching?
Vexille is a very slick anime feature, I was immensely impressed with the CGI employed, it seems that the anime producers and directors have taken lessons and techniques learned in making Appleseed some four years ago and pushed things that extra notch upwards, improving the quality and feel behind an entirely CGI generated film. It’s also interesting to see the sparseness of what the film makers have employed in creating the various landscapes in which much of the drama occurs. For ten years no one has managed to set foot in Japan, not even the crews of vessels carrying goods in and out of the islands it seems as if they’re firmly sequestered in their vessels, their prying eyes kept away from the shores of the land of the Rising Sun.
Naturally much of the mystery within this film does centre on precisely what is Japan like after ten years of isolation from the entire world. And in this very facet of Vexille we get a truly interesting dichotomy of things, after the storming of the palatial retreat the audience is given a glimpse of the Los Angeles of the late twenty first century, a sprawling, shining metropolis that could have emerged straight from the pages of a fifties pulp fiction novel. We first see what has become Tokyo it is a truly marked contrast, the city that could probably be described as one of the major cities in Asia, if the not the major metropolis is nothing more than a simple shanty town encircled by a single vast wall with the headquarters and manufacturing compound of Daiwa Corporation situated out in the midst of Tokyo Bay connected to the mainland by three tunnels. And Mount Fuji and the surrounding countryside, the various other cities and communities, what has happened to them? They are simply no more…there is only Tokyo and its wall and wasteland beyond that imposing barrier. It seems that a lot has changed in the ten years since the implementation of the isolation policy, drastically so.
It is interesting to note that the director and writer, Mr Sori, had chosen a romance on which to be the foundation for this movie and I have to admit that the thought of this being the basis for his feature did not occur to me at all as I initially watched it. Certainly I was well aware of the romantic element within the film, the triangle between the title character, Maria the former public security operative and Leon, the man in command of the infiltration team dispatched by SWORD to enter Japan and discover what the heck is going on. It was fairly clear what was happening between them, but until I watched the interviews with the director/creator/writer the concept that the romance was the core in the story just didn’t occur.
My own feeling about it was that it was something of a morality tale in regards to the nature of hubris as well as the seemingly insatiable consumerism that makes up a large deal of first world societies, be they western or eastern nations. It is interesting to note that in the Japan of 2077 there is a far greater sense of community and solidarity than there is to be found in the US of 2077, in fact it almost seems as if the bulk of the outside world have lost a certain degree of their humanity without realising that this loss has occurred. Vexille and Leon live together, work in the same place and are employed by the same employer yet there is this distinct feeling that although this may be the case they are fairly isolated from each other, and in her own way Vexille can sense this lack, this emotional distance between her and Leon yet is unable to articulate it.
Its rather ironic in the light of certain plot developments within the story that those who have been dwelling in a ‘free’ and transparent society have lost something of their intrinsic humanness whilst those who have spent the last ten years living in Japan are in the opposite situation. What they face so much is not merely the loss of humanity but loss of self and existence. Vexille is definitely a movie well worth getting your hands on and watching, it is a finely crafted piece of cinematography that has all the key elements of a great movie.
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