I was just watching the first Patlabor movie, a classic 1989 mecha anime, directed and animated by the team behind Ghost in the Shell, when it struct me how unlikely it was that this movie would get its turn unfurling before my eyes. While I do enjoy japanese animation, I am far from an expert, and it might be considered one of my minor interests. As such, I might have made it through life without seeing Patlabor without feeling, other than in a passing party discussion with a true aficionado, loss from not having gotten around to it. So it could have gone entirely unnoticed, as it likely does for many here on this earth. While not particularly obscure (if I wanted obscure I would have brought up of Perostrínia 2004 or some other forgotten work, not a rich Japanese franchise comprising of three movies, a television series and many straight-to-whatever media of the time films) Patlabor showcases some meticulously drawn backgrounds of the best 80s anime, and a particularly breathtaking board became the locus for the aforementioned melancholia. Thinking about the animator, working over the details of a house's roof in what would become a panning cityscape.
The moment spent applying honed skill to a detail within a fraction-of-a-second glimpse. I thought of how little appreciation this detail was getting on a day-to-day basis and somehow all of human endeavour came to mind. Working of a movie of this scope likely was a dream come true to the animators brought onboard. Their efforts probably paid off in a sense of self-worth and in monetary compensation, as the movie was well-received and well-watched. But that's not really the point. What I'm getting at is that the movie's details have already entered a logic of posterity, where they are at best remembered, and only moving towards being forgotten.
I would like to think that its worth hasn't changed now that it's 22 years old. Quite to the contrary, it offers some great moments of retro-futurism, like advanced robot-hardware running on 1989 software (with, as added charm, the bleep-bloop-bleeps reminiscent of integrated 80s PC sound). But having left the relatively limited spotlight of the new release section, and of random Japanese small talk about current events, Patlabor already exists in a stasis state, archived rather than actualized when watched by the concerned few (otakus, moderate fans, cartoon network stoners, etc.). Unless one decides to grant this movie an amount of time that is uneven with the rest of possible creative works, it is merely glossed over as part of an ensemble. I myself only watched it in an effort to see some of the most popular japanese feature-length animations. I'll soon be moving on to other films, and it will gather dust on a shelf, besides thousands of others like it. My point being that even now, speaking of the film, I am not actualizing it as much as using it to speak of every film, of every piece of music, of all writing. These spasms of creation that started waves not yet extinguished, but slowly being annulled by the resistance of history.
Patlabor, with its charming representation of the year 1999 as one of the near future, stands as a monument to time passing. The melancholia felt by the short lived appreciation for effort is a symptom to this unveiling of the passage of time. When discussing melacholia, Robert Burton found a remedy in song and dance;
"Chiron the centaur, is said to have cured this and many other diseases by music alone: as now they do those, saith Bodine, that are troubled with St. Vitus's Bedlam dance."
Oddly then, it might be that the very same feeling caused by old movies is what motivates those in the present to make their own spasms, their own creative works, in turn burying the past in the archive necessitated by the proliferation. From one spasm to the next.
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