Review : Ghost In The Shell - The blinds scene

The 2017 Hollywood movie featuring Scarlett Johansson is based on the Japanese animation movie from 1995 of the same name directed by Mamoru Oshii. The original movie is particularly notable for some of its scenes which are artistic master-pieces. Here we will talk about a one minute sequence at the opening of the movie - “The blinds scene”.

The scene after the opening titles shows the protagonist of the story, Major Motoko Kusanagi wake up in her apartment. She ponders for a few moments, gets out of the bed, goes to the other room to get dressed and leaves the apartment. For majority of the scene the audience is seeing a rectangular window showing the skyline of the city and the top of the bed that’s illuminated by the light coming from the window. Everything else is completely dark. This is an incredibly minimal scene in terms of visible content.

Yet, the creative use of shadows and silhouettes shows us the events in the room without us actually seeing them.

When Kusanagi is out of the frame, in the adjascent room, we see the light coming from the door shine on the floor. From the moving shadow of Kusanagi we get the hint of what she is doing. Soon after the door closes and the light on the floor vanishes. Few moments later we see a silhouette of Kusanagi approaching the camera and leaving the apartment. As she is walking we see her weat a coat.

In addition to the minimalism, another brilliant technique used here is the alternating use of negative and positive space. The dark shapes that appear as silhouettes and shadows are carved out of negative space. They show in the later part when Kusanagi wears the jacket slipping one hand into its sleeve as she’s walking out of the apartment. However earlier in the scene the director uses positive space to tell the story. This is when Kusanagi is out of the frame and is in the neighbouring room, her actions are shown in her shadow falling in the bright light coming from the room’s door. The light from the door creates a small positive space on the dark canvas and shows the character’s actions in negative space embedded inside it.

Negative Space

Positive Space (with embedded negative space)

The switch between positive and negative spaces makes a compelling portrait.

The masterpiece however is the closing of this scene. After Kusanagi’s silhouette has left the apartment (and the frame), we are still left to watch the window for full 8 seconds wondering in anticipation. There aren’t any characters left in the scene, neither is there any notable prop (just a bed and window). So what significant thing can happen in this almost empty room for which the director has held our attention for 8 full seconds? And then it hits. The closing of the blinds! Of course, the person leaving the apartment will close the blinds as they walk out. We don’t expect such a trivial thing to be explicitly depicted in a movie, let alone using it to make the scene poetic. The trivial action of closing the blinds doesn’t add to the story, but it adds to the depth of character. It also makes us more aware of the space.

The background music multiplies the serenity of the scene further.

The Japanese animation movies are known for their artistic style that gives more importance to the exploration of the space than the progress of the story. By means of composition of frame, tricks of light and mundane actions of characters the Japanese directors pull us into the character’s space that in turn gives added depth to the story.

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