>>23682300
I can't think of much else that'll give you the depression kino like SK will. You'd probably like Princess and the Pilot though.

>>23682380
I should have included vidya in the OP.
it reminded me a lot of NieR: Automata
what with the endlessly doomed lovers fighting a sham war
but I wasn't prepared for how comfy the movie is

>>23682394
Are you wanting flight stuff specifically? Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence has the same kind of pacing and heady quality.

>>23682380
>>23682479
Sorry yea both of these are good recommendations.
Anything remotely similar.
But also just want to discuss the film.

Not that I have much to say personally. I just loved the mood and the setting of the film.

>>23682300
different vibe but still depressing and about air combat:
area 88

>>23682300
Sure thing.

Spoilers if you haven't seen it. I would recommend you do not read these posts if you have not seen the film.
I guess this is a review.

Immediately after making the thread I realized I didn't have much to say about it, and that there might not be much to talk about, with the film specifically.
For me this is partly because I don't want to make this comparison: but I think there's an obvious comparison with Bladerunner. It feels impolite to make that comparison, because the film is too interesting to just say "it's Bladerunner with planes" but it's certainly a worthwhile comparison.
You have artificial people, particularly artificial young and beautiful people (as Bladerunner's Nexus 6 replicants were, which I do think is a theme that movie is trying to tackle - the issue of genetically engineering people with sex appeal, ie. Tyrell is making sex slaves).
These artificial people are cloned or engineered from the same template persons over and over, and seem to have the latent memories of their source pilots, and this has some overlap with the way Bladerunner handles memory, or at least memory manipulation of your genetically engineered slaves. Sorry if I'm getting the details of Sky Crawlers fuzzy, it's been a busy Christmas.

Where it parts with Bladerunner: these cloned, forever young and beautiful soldiers, pilots, are of course made to fight in wars. Blood sports, essentially, for the satisfaction of the public. Where Bladerunner feels out of time, being both futuristic sci-fi and in the tradition of film noir, Sky Crawlers has these very futuristic elements, genetic engineering, corporatocracy, the prop engine planes with some futuristic design elements (one wonders if the world of Sky Crawlers is capable of more advanced technology and chooses prop engine planes for their aesthetic beauty), and so on, and it feels lost in time in the 1940's. Lost in WW2.

1/2

>>23684329

2/2

It's horrible to admit this but this is a lovely fantasy.
This is exactly the kind of nightmare/BDSM scenario that haunts me, and that I would find difficult to want to leave. It sure would be horrible to be brought back to life over and over again, with some latent continuity of memory to constantly rediscover, to meet my lover/commanding officer over and over, and to be forever young, only be capable of inevitably dying in a dogfight.
What a horrible fantasy. I hope something like that never happens to me. /sarcasm
Of course it is actually horrible and extreme, which the characters in the film eventually do recognize, seeming to tacitly agree to rebel. With Kusanagi choosing to live with the horrible realization of their situation, and carry that weight for Kannami who attempts (and fails) to kill the source of their problem. He returns to her as a clone with wiped memories, but they're poised to try again.

This is all very appealing to me personally, as fiction. It's a wild fantasy to think about.
But describing it all in this way loses the extremely comfortable quality the film has that makes it all work. It's all the little things. The diner. The bowling. The cigarettes. The girls getting shoo'd off the air base.