Patlabor 2: The Movie

An animated film set in Tokyo in the near future. A bridge is destroyed from the air. The records show a fighter aircraft, but that aircraft could not have been there; the army says it flew no such mission and nobody is sure the footage is real. A state of emergency is declared in the city. Armoured vehicles come into the streets, the bridges are held and the army and the police face each other. An old police unit is set to look into it. The investigation leads to a name: an officer who served on a peacekeeping mission abroad years ago and was left there. What the film is interested in is not action but an idea: what the peace of a country that appears to be without war rests on. The characters argue it in long conversations and the film gives those conversations time. Visually it rests on views of the city: empty avenues, bridges under snow, shots in which the camera stays still for a long while. The robot fights are few and are not the point. Mamoru Oshii directed; he became internationally known with the film he made a few years later, and much of the style used here will be familiar from it. An important production for anyone who likes political science fiction and slow animation. For a viewer expecting action, the film consists largely of talk and waiting.