echo-from-the-void:

During the middle part of the Ghost in the Shell movie, there is a long montage sequence, that has fascinated me for a long time now. What is the purpose of the montage, if it even has one? The director of the movie, Mamoru Oshii, likes to incorporate montages into his movies, so maybe they just reflect his directional style, and nothing else.

However, in this post I`d like to play with the idea that there is more going on with the montage sequence that one might first at think. I will be looking at the montage for a movie structural point of view, and if there is a potential interpretation one can make about the possible deeper meanings of it.

First it is good to understand what a montage sequence is.

Montage (/mɒnˈtɑːʒ/) is a technique in film editing in which a series of short shots are edited into a sequence to condense space, time, and information. The term has been used in various contexts.

Source: x

Time

From a movie structural point of view, the montage sequence in GitS condenses time, and fast forwards one day from the beginning to the late evening. The sequence begins from what one assumes day/morning, and ends in the evening rain, thus fast forwarding the day. There is feeling of motion and going forward during the montage, which makes the viewer feel that the day is progressing, that we are going forward in a linear understanding of time. This is created in a interesting way. 

Start watching the video from 0:13. The montage begins by a scene where an airplane is flying. 

Then the same plane is seeing moving from the reflections of windows, and then the sequence showcases a moving boat. There is a constant, undisturbed movement in the montage. Either something is moving in the scene, a plane, boat, shadow, or the perspective/camera is moving. 

This movement stops when it starts raining, and the scenes become more static. There are moving elements in them, but not in the same manner as before. It is also possible that the movements point was just to correspond to the boats. To make the viewer feel that we are moving as the boat does, following Major. As the movement halts and the landscape changes from the river to something different, it could indicates that the boat has stopped, and we are no longer following the Major.

Juxtapose 

The montage can be used in films to juxtapose images, to create and produce associations and impressions. One of the most famous examples of this is in Soviet film maker, Sergey Eisenstein`s Strike, where workers being cut down by the cavalry, is followed by image of cows being slaughtered. So the workers are like animals that are killed. 

GitS also juxtaposes different images during the montage. For example in 1:49, we see dolls behind a window, inside a shop. This scene is immediately followed by a shot of the Major behind glass window. 

This sequence seeks to create and link/association between the two. Is the Major, who is a cyborg, whose body is wholly mechanical and artificial, like the dolls in the fashion shops window?  

This becomes even more interesting when one remembers that this is the Puppet Master arc, and in a previous scene, the Puppet Master whispered that they see trough glass. Is the Major a puppet, or maybe this foreshadows the fusion of Major and the Puppet Master.   

Reality

Now the final point that relates to the “deeper symbolical” meaning. I think that the montage sequence is supposed to have an dream like feeling, mixing fiction and facts, thus distorting reality. There is an eerie music in the background, and it is like the people are walking in slow motion. 

Before this we are also introduced with the concept of simulated experience. In this experience, all the information is real and at the same time false. The garbage man was convinced that he had a wife and a daughter, but this was an simulated experience, false memory 

I think the montage might be something like this, all the information there is real, but at the same time false. It mixes false elements with reality. For example, Major sees someone looking very similar to her in a cafe. The “clone” looks at Major, and the Major looks at her. After this the Major has confused expression on her face.  

The Major appears in the window as I mentioned earlier. Either those Majors were a memory of when she visited the place, or there is something distorting things.

What makes me even more suspicious about the nature of the montage is the presence of the basset hound. Now, it could be that its there, because it is kind of the signature of Oshii, but I think the basset hound is loaded with association about illusions. 

The first time we see a basset hound is in a poster, when a person is using camouflage. The next time we see it, it is in a tv-commercial while the simulated experience is being explained, and it also can be seen from the photo, that the person under the simulation, thought to show his wife and child. 

So trough these, I think the basset hound is associated with illusions.

Maybe the whole crux of this is to nail home Major´s identity crisis and confusion. What is she, is there an real “I” inside her body, or is it just an pseudo personality. What is real, what is artificial?