Over the next few weeks, I will be re-watching and reviewing all the feature films of Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, internationally acclaimed as perhaps the world's greatest animator and among my personal favorite filmmakers.
Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro (1979)
The Castle of Cagliostro was Hayao Miyazaki's first feature length animation, though he had been working in the medium for years creating television episodes. It's based on a pre-existing property - the Lupin III manga series, which had been popular in Japan since the 1960s, inspiring a television show and several films. All the Lupin III adventures center around a mischievous gentleman thief and his escapades, which unfold in a fantastic Eastern vision of continental Europe inspired by pulp serials and James Bond. The Castle of Cagliostro is less purely a result of Miyazaki's imagination than his later films - many of the themes and character types that would define his work are not present in this more generic adventure. It feels less like a deeply personal passion project than a job for hire from a budding animator. The animation, too, looks more cartoony than his later films, lacking their richness and painterly beauty.
Yet it's equally clear that Miyazaki gave his all to make The Castle of Cagliostro the best film it could be. The animation might be cheaper, but it's excellent considering the budgetary limitations. The backgrounds have real scale, depth and detail, and the simply-designed, caricatured characters are fun and expressive in a style unique to cartoons. The silly adventure story is generic, but in the best way - it revels in the most fun elements of its genre. The Castle of Cagliostro is restlessly action-packed and gleefully goofy. It is filled with all the most delightful cliches of swashbuckling adventure stories - trap doors and secret passageways, damsels in distress and nefarious henchmen, car chases and heroes dangling from great heights - all done with high-spirited style. It may look simple or unaccomplished compared to Miyazaki's more ambitious subsequent work, but taken on its own terms The Castle of Cagliostro is marvelous fun.
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984)
Like The Castle of Cagliostro, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind is based on a pre-existing source - this time one of Miyazaki's creation, an epic manga series he wrote. He compressed and simplified his sprawling saga into one two-hour film, and the result, although not Miyazaki's first film, is the true introduction to his unique vision as an artist.
Nausicaa is set in a futuristic world that is equal parts Star Wars and Mad Max. A long-ago man-made disaster has poisoned the earth. Small pockets of civilization are threatened by ever-expanding toxic jungles, lethal to humans and inhabited by enormous insects. Our titular character is the princess of one of these human strongholds, the Valley of the Wind, an agricultural, utopian society amid the wastelands. The peaceful Valley is disrupted by an airship crash-landing in their midst, carrying strange cargo - an enormous beating heart. The ship belongs to the Tolmekians, a military state who are planning to grow a giant, a living weapon of mass destruction to wipe out the toxic jungle. We learn that these ancient giants were what destroyed so much of the earth in the first place.
Nausicaa is a big step forward from The Castle of Cagliostro in sophistication. It tells a complicated story on a massive scale, with urgently expressed environmental and pacifist themes. It struck me on this viewing that, in a certain sense, Nausicaa is the type of film Avatar wanted to be. It is both an action-packed adventure and an unabashed message movie. Yet Avatar swerved into annoying pontification in expressing its environmental, anti-colonial messages, and was simplistic and hypocritical in its us-versus-them violent conflict. In Nausicaa, Miyazaki's concerns arise organically out of the world and characters he creates. The reasons for warfare are not simple. The most villainous characters in Nausicaa have humanity and legitimate reasons for the beliefs they hold - their faith in the ends justifying the means is what leads them astray. Even the hideous giant insects are allowed to have dignity; they are never portrayed by Miyazaki as other than dangerous wild animals, but they have nobility in their animal natures. Many films preach non-violence while reveling in violence, but Nausicaa consistently upholds empathy and self-sacrifice over force and might.
Miyazaki protagonists are often brave, intelligent young women, and Nausicaa is among the most memorable. She is feminine and powerful, skilled but humble. Though an excellent fighter, she almost always prefers to be diplomatic - the one instance where she does erupt in violent anger nearly leads to disaster. Her vengeful fury would be presented as empowering by many a less thoughtful film, especially since the reasons behind it are entirely sympathetic, but Miyazaki is too conscientious a storyteller to make things that easy.
Hayao Miyazaki's imagination as a creator of worlds seems boundless. The animation, while it does not have quite the same painterly richness as Miyazaki films to come, offers up sequence after sequence of astonishing beauty and originality. I'm especially fond of the design of the Ohmu, enormous trilobite-like insects whose eyes glow blue when peaceful and red when enraged. Their scale and power is awesome in a way only a master animator could capture. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind pulls me in to the world it creates with each viewing. This is a major work from a very special artist and storyteller, though even better was to come.
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