I went and saw The Sky Crawlers at Toronto’s 08 Film Festival, and wasn’t surprised when most of the audience seemed to walk away feeling a bit unaffected by the movie. The film’s director Mamoru Oshii has a cinematic style that is nothing if not an acquired taste -- one that domestic theaters are reticent to acquire.

Any person who has addicted themselves to the traditional Aristotolean story structure will find themselves feeling lost and aimless by the middle of Act 2 in Sky Crawlers and most of Oshii’s films. If there even is an Act 2 in the first place. The big bang opening action sequence between the fighter pilots in Sky Crawlers is about as formulaic as Oshii is willing to get with any of his movies. After that, he transitions from speed-of-light action to speed-of-life storytelling where his characters and their dialoug all have the same pacing and meandering of real life. That means, if you’re used to Hollywood’s colorful characters bloated with one-liners and a plot that runs straight for the end-zone, than you’ll probably find Oshii’s films to be slow. Maybe even boring.

It also means that you’re probably not his audience.

Oshii's primary audience is himself, as most of his characters seem to be alter-egos helping him reslove his own philosophical conflicts and questions about society. His secondary audience is anybody trying to do the same for themselves. I don’t mind watching Oshii talk to himself in his movies since the dialoug is so intelligent and unpretentious. For the most part the characters say what they mean, and mean what they say. They can’t afford to do otherwise, because we are finding them at dark, introspective moments in their lives which is usually when a person is pruned of all pretense. This is precisely why I find Oshii’s cinematic language so refreshing. Despite his graphically lush visuals, his movies manage to have a closer kinship to literature than cinema. Listening may be more important than looking in his films. For example, the characters in Sky Crawlers speak Japanese on the ground, but switch to English when at war. This effect seems to be commentary on how American occupation has shifted the habits of Japan’s youth, which according to Oshii, has become more violent.

American advertising, like American movies, tend to be over-saturated with sarcasm and winking-eye wit. Oshii is among those auteurs that has helped me to develop a more sobering and mature language for my work. That’s not to say that I’ve abandoned my sense of humor. But smart-ass is not the same as smart, and truly smart media – be it graphic design or film – is a rarity in the mainstream. Oshii’s discipline and intelligence is an export that American film would be wise to welcome.