Mamoru Oshii's "Interval" direction in "GHOST IN THE SHELL" - the moment the story stops, the theme begins to move sideways.

The latest anime based on Masamune Shirow's "Ghost in the Shell" manga, "Ghost in the Shell SAC_2045: Sustainable Warfare," has been in theaters since November 12. The first animated adaptation of "Ghost in the Shell" was "GHOST IN THE SHELL" (1995), directed by Mamoru Oshii.
GHOST IN THE SHELL" briefly depicts the plot in which Motoko Kusanagi, a cyborg belonging to Public Security Section 9, is approached by a "puppet master," a life form that arose in the sea of information on the Internet, and evolves into a new being by fusing with him. On the other hand, an atmosphere of ennui pervades the entire film, thanks to Mamoru Oshii's fantastical direction.
For example, just before Motoko surfaces from a scuba dive, she comes into contact with her other self, as if facing a mirror. This composition is in line with the scene at the beginning of the film in which Motoko's artificial body is manufactured in an aquarium. At the same time, the scene in which one character meets his/her other self through the water surface is also found in Oshii's masterpiece "Tenshi no Tamago" (Angel's Egg).
Another characteristic of Oshii's direction is the "interval," a pause in the story where the progress of the story is halted, the sound effects accompanying the environment and situation are turned off, and only lyrical scenery, mainly music, is played over and over again.

The moment Motoko hears the ghost's whisper, the story stops progressing for five and a half minutes.

There are two "interludes" in "Ghost in the Shell.
The first one begins right after Motoko hears a mysterious voice while she is talking with Batou after scuba diving. The plot development is set to continue with an important scene in which a female prosthetic body possessed by the puppeteer is hit by a car, but the story is halted after several shots of Motoko wandering the city and the streets in the pouring rain.
The other is a tense scene in the latter half of the film in which Motoko, who has discovered the whereabouts of the puppeteer's prosthetic body, rushes to the scene by helicopter, and the other members of Section 9 also go their separate ways. In a normal action film, the climax would be a flashy climax, but in this film, it is the opposite. The camera zooms in on Motoko's profile as if it were entering her inner world, showing Batou, Togusa, Chief Aramaki, and others, but there is no dialogue from them. There is no dialogue from them. All that can be heard is a few sound effects, such as the sound of a helicopter, and then some slow music.
In this section, we will look at what is shown between the first two important scenes, "Motoko hears a mysterious voice on the ship and the puppeteer's prosthetic body is hit". From the close-up of Motoko, the screen fades to a white background, which fades in and leads to cut (1). At the same time, the music starts.

(1) The pitch-black silhouette of an airplane crosses over a building decorated with billboards.
(2) The black silhouette of the airplane is reflected on the glass surface of the building.
(3) A yellow boat moves along a narrow channel filled with billboards.
(4) The yellow boat slowly curves toward the front of the screen.
(5) Overhead view of the boat moving through the narrow channel beyond the billboards.
(6) Trash floats on the surface of the water. The shadow of a boat is reflected there.
(7) In a symmetrical composition, a yellow boat moves along a waterway flanked by buildings on both sides.
(8) The people on the boat are seen from behind, looking at the street on the ground from the boat's edge.
(9) Subjective shot from the boat, showing a coffee shop inside a building in the foreground.
(10) At the window of the coffee shop, a woman in red looks back with the same face as Motoko.
(11) Motoko on the boat looks back, perhaps noticing the woman in red.
(12) Close-up of Motoko looking in the direction of the building. She turns to face the front and looks into the distance.
(13) Beyond the billboard, we can see a huge building that looks like a ruin (subjective cut from the boat).
(14) Subjective cut from the boat. Beyond the bridge at an angle, there is a building.
(15) A traffic light under the bridge is flashing yellow lights.
(16) The surface of the river is stagnant. Bicycles and other objects have been discarded.
(17) A yellow boat is seen from an alley. People with shopping bags are walking in front of the boat.
(18) Subjective shot from the boat, with a dog wagging its tail from the bridge.
(19) A show window of a clothing store with two mannequin dolls standing. The boat is reflected on the glass surface.
(20) Close-up of the mannequins. Their faces look just like those of Elements.
(21) Rain drops on the surface of the river, creating ripples here and there.
(22) An old hotel. It is raining.
(23) A traffic signal. It is raining.
(24) A bird's-eye view of cluttered buildings sandwiched between a highway and a waterway.
(25) A waterway with skyscrapers in the back and a cluster of old buildings in the foreground. Children with yellow umbrellas are running.
(26) A sloping street in the city. People walking with umbrellas.
(27) Behind an old building. The walls are covered with the same posters with only letters.
(28) A backlit billboard. Beyond it, neon lights can be seen.
(29) In the rain, a streetcar runs through the cluttered city and stops.
(30) A small boat with electric signs on both sides is moving along a narrow channel.
(31) The patterns and letters on the signs are reflected in the glass doors on the ground. A man is looking at the sign vaguely.
(32) Light is spilling from a room in a building facing the waterway. Rain is creating ripples around it.
(33) A small boat in the foreground and a building in the background. Some mannequin dolls are standing in the glass window.
(34) Close-up. A faceless female mannequin doll is standing.

The music fades out here and the scene changes to a highway at night. A human foot appears in the foreground, and in the next cut we see that a naked woman is standing on the road. It is a prosthetic body possessed by the puppeteer. The story takes a major turn when the prosthetic is hit by a truck.
A total of 32 cuts, or about five and a half minutes, show the canal and the rainy town, which means that the story has been paused. However, the cessation of the story does not mean the cessation of the film. Let's delve a little deeper into the 32 cuts in this "interlude.

Water changes its state from sea to river to rain. Then, Motoko meets her "other self.

First of all, the first half of "Interlude" is depicted from Motoko's point of view. The yellow boat on which Motoko rides appears in (3) and remains in the frame in some form or another from then until (20). （In (13) to (15), there are only background images without people, but a book (cut-out background) is superimposed to express the movement of the boat going up the river.
（In (21), rain begins to fall and both the element and the boat disappear. The latter half of the rainfall functions as a foreshadowing of the puppeteer who appears on the rainy highway. It also seems to suggest where the drama is headed by the changing state of the water, from the sea, where Motoko hears a mysterious voice, to the river, to the rain .......

In terms of foreshadowing the puppeteer, the mannequin dolls shown in (19), (33), and (34) should not be overlooked. Since the puppeteer's prosthetic body is female-typed, the mannequins in these scenes are also female-typed.
In (20), a close-up of a mannequin doll that looks exactly like Motoko is shown. （The pose and clothing of the mannequin in (19) are slightly different from those of the mannequin in (20), so is it a different doll? Or is it Motoko with different clothes? Then, who is the Motoko-like woman sitting in the coffee shop in (10)? Is it the same type of prosthesis as Motoko's, or is it a hallucination that only Motoko could see?
In any case, two other Motoko appear in this "interlude. As I mentioned at the beginning, Motoko has already met her "other self" through the surface of the sea in the scuba diving scene just before. Both Motoko the mannequin doll and Motoko in the coffee shop are on the other side of the glass. Both the glass and the surface of the water reflect themselves as mirrors. At the same time, both the glass and the water surface allow us to see through to the entity on the other side. Is Motoko Kusanagi really hallucinating? Or is Motoko not alone, but many other Motoko?
If the dialogue and the play propel the story vertically, the "interval," where the story seems to stagnate, cuts the theme of the work in half from the horizontal direction.


(Text by Keisuke Hirota)