Lain reviewed

"Serial Experiments Lain"
Ryutaro Nakamura, dir.
1998

"Lain" is an anime serial produced in 1998, a year before "The Matrix," the closest comparison familiar to Amerikan filmgoers. Both "Lain" and "The Matrix" try to place the sci-fi cliche that the supposedly real world is an hallucination on a materialist basis. So far "The Matrix" saga does a better job of this than "Lain," which invites mystical or relativist interpretations. "The Matrix" also has a firmer grasp of political economy. Where "The Matrix" has what MIM dubs "the battery mode of production," "Lain" is left with whacky conspiracy theories and comic-book villains. "Lain's" strong points are it's criticism of imperialist-country alienation and portrayal of engaged, tech-savvy youth. Many of "Lain's" characters are dissatisfied or bored with their meaningless jobs and roles in straight society. In response, they drop out and create new lives for themselves in "the wired," an obvious reference to the internet. Rather than glorify this escape, however, "Lain" views it critically, as a form of decadence. Some of the autonomous collectives in "the wired" play malicious pranks that kill people in the real world. The title-character, a junior-high-aged girl, eventually fights against such groups and against similar tendencies in herself. In the beginning of the series, Lain is a timid girl, somewhat out of touch with modern technology. In order to learn why bad things are happening around her and do something to stop them, Lain learns to be more forceful and teaches herself to use "the wired." She quickly becomes more advanced than almost all of the people on "the wired." When she realizes that events in "the wired" have life-and-death consequences in the real world, she focuses all of her energy there, ignoring the everyday pursuits of her friends: clubbing, dating, gossiping, etc. In the end, she sacrifices her own happiness for the happiness of society. There's a whiff of feminism in "Lain," with its young heroine and distrust of adults. "Lain" may also be satirizing sexualized images of wimmin. In one funny scene, a delivery man hits on a middle-aged housewife and teases her about not knowing how to use her computer. She puts him in his place, and we learn later that she is an elite hacker. Still, "Lain" may be too subtle for its own good. Viewers may miss the criticism and just see cute schoolgirls and secretaries in short skirts. The character Lain at least is not drawn in a sexualized fashion. MIM sees advantages to "Lain's" formal structure. In the beginning, "Lain" takes everyday situations and makes them seem strange and insidious, as if there is danger, oppression and death lurking just under the humdrum surface- -an apt metaphor for life in imperialist countries. The viewer is left to ponder just what the hell is going on for the first half of the series, but in the end (or upon repeated viewing and thought) there is an explanation for the trippy twists. Formally, this is better than a mind-fuck ending which leaves interpretation up to each viewer--although, ironically, the explanation is a relativist one (see our reservations in the first paragraph of this review). A further serious flaw in "Lain:" it makes no references to reality outside of imperialist-countries. The decadence of imperialist society is not just a matter of internal ennui, violence, and fucked-up gender relations: it's also predicated on the imperialists' oppression and exploitation of the colonies and neo-colonies. "Lain" assumes all of humynity can connect to "the wired." In our world, less than 10% of the world's population has internet access (619 million of 6.23 billion).(1) For that matter, countries like Afghanistan, Burma, and Liberia have less than one telephone line per 100 population, and only 28% of India's population has access to improved sanitary facilities.(2) MIM believes that the internet and other high-tech information tools can be used to forge a global community (although the community we envision is more prosaic than that in "Lain").(3) However, serious economic and political problems must be solved before the full humyn potential of these technologies can be realized. These tools must be wrested from those who put profit by any means ahead of humyn needs. Notes: 1. www.glreach.com/globstat 2. unstats.un.org/unsd/mi/mi_series_list.asp 3. See e.g. out review of "Towards a New Socialism" by Cockshott and Cottrell at www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/bookstore/books/capital/cockshott.html