The Films of Hayao Miyazaki: Part 2

Castle in the Sky (1986)

Hayao Miyazaki's follow up to Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind shares many similarities with its predecessor. Like Nausicaa, Castle in the Sky is set in a fantasy world that is equally of the past and the future. 19th century mining towns and farms exist alongside futuristic flying airships. The world of Castle in the Sky is designed with a steampunk aesthetic, equally inspired by medieval and Victorian European architecture and Flash Gordon sci-fi serials. Also like Nausicaa, Castle in the Sky has thinly veiled anti-nuclear power themes, along with Miyazaki's usual concern for respect and conservation of the natural world. However, Castle in the Sky is a breezier film than Nausicaa - more of a simple adventure story, where Nausicaa was a complex, Campbellian epic. It's still an adventure on a huge scale, but one that tells a straightforward good vs. evil story with broad humor and lighthearted characters.

It's a terrific adventure story too, a thrilling swashbuckler set in the endless skies instead of the high seas. Miyazaki's love of flight finds perhaps its most joyous expression here. The majority of Castle in the Sky takes place among the clouds - he clearly delights in animating a variety of retro-futuristic flying machines, and the landscape of the sky with its drifting clouds and roiling storms. Laputa, the titular castle in the sky (its name taken from Jonathan Swift's flying island in Gulliver's Travels), is one of Miyazaki's most marvelous creations. Laputa is an Atlantis of the sky, a lost city capable of terrible power. It's been overtaken by nature, watched over by a lone robot who tends to its vast gardens, a proto WALL-E. Miyazaki's imagination, and his skill in bringing his imaginings to life with rich beauty and detail, is astonishing.

My Neighbor Totoro (1988)

A big change of direction in Miyazaki's career. My Neighbor Totoro is unlike Miyazaki's previous films - where they were expansive, packed with action and conflict, Totoro is small in scope and essentially plotless. Despite its fantasy elements, Totoro exists in a real time and place, Japan in the 1950s. There are no villains, no battles, no big conflicts - just a regular family and a few magical creatures, whose existence is casually accepted.

Even those who have never seen a Miyazaki film might recognize Totoro, who has become internationally iconic. And no wonder - he's such an adorably designed creature, with his fat, round body, short arms and legs, and expressive mouth and eyes, which can be tiny or huge depending on his mood.

His behavior makes him even more endearing. I suspect that the best children's characters - Winnie the Pooh is another example - take themselves entirely seriously, no matter how comical they are. Totoro is never buffoonish or a jokester. Even in his most absurd moments - being alarmed by a toddler's roar despite his enormous size, attempting to keep dry from the rain by placing a small leaf on his head - he's very serious, which makes him all the more lovable. Part of Totoro's appeal, too, is that he's never explained. Is he a forest spirit? Is he a figment of the children's imagination? Miyazaki does not give him a backstory, or any psychological explanation. He just is. The young protagonists accept his existence with quick delight, and children watching the film will, too. Some things are more enchanting when left unexplained.

He's not the only wonderful creature in the film, either. There are the smaller Totoros, nervous and bunny-like in appearance, who scuttle after their giant friend like ducklings. Then there's the Catbus, a twelve-legged feline transport for the spirit world, with eyes like headlights and furry seats on the inside. His enormous Cheshire grin is mildly frightening and delightfully weird.

Every time one of these magical beings appears, My Neighbor Totoro rises to a whole new level of delight - but even without them, this would have been a great film. My Neighbor Totoro might be the best film about childhood ever made. The two central characters, young sisters, are among the most convincing children in animation. They act like real, energetic kids, exploring their new house and its grounds with ecstatic happiness and curiosity. Satsuki, the eldest, is the smart, responsible elder sister. She loves her sister and watches out for her, despite occasional annoyance with her. Mei is the younger sibling, always following Satsuki and clumsily imitating all she does and says. Mei in particular is a triumph of character animation. Her features may be cartoonish, but there is incredible realism to her expressions and movements. When she runs, stumbles, and crawls, she has the life-like physicality of a toddler, something that I imagine must be difficult to capture in animation.

My Neighbor Totoro is all about the everyday feelings and sensations of being a kid. How the smallest things could be a source of wonder - an acorn discovered on the ground, wiggling your fingers at tadpoles in a puddle; or of fear - a dark staircase leading to an attic, a storm shaking the windowpanes. It also expresses the uncomprehending sadness of children that life can sometimes be unfair. Satsuki and Mei's beloved mother is in the hospital for an extended stay, and both are afraid and angry that she cannot be safe at home. A scene where Mei cries in scared frustration is heart-piercing without resorting to any melodrama or manipulation, the moment just seems so real. With perhaps the exception of Malick's Tree of Life, I've never seen children represented so well on film. Even more so than its cuddly creatures, I suspect that is the true reason why My Neighbor Totoro strikes a chord with so many people. In many of its particulars it's very tied to Japanese life and culture, but it captures something universally relatable and deeply human.

The animation is just gorgeous, too. The animation style is softer than Miyazaki's previous films, with less bold colors and clear lines. Many frames look like a watercolor painting. My Neighbor Totoro beautifully evokes the Japanese countryside, the green foliage and fields, the buzzing insects, the changing quality of light as long afternoons draw to a close.

If it's not already obvious, My Neighbor Totoro is a movie that I hold dear. I loved it as a kid, and still do as an adult. It's a modest but masterful work of art.

The Films of Hayao Miyazaki: Part 1

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.

Viewing Journal - April 2016 #3

Kagemusha (Akira Kurosawa, Japan, 1980)

Before he became a film-maker, Akira Kurosawa wanted to be a painter. In his later years, making color films instead of black-and-white as he had done for decades, Kurosawa returned to painting to create storyboards for his movies. These paintings were expressionistic and brightly colored.

Incredibly, Kurosawa managed to translate the essence of his paintings onto film - every frame of Kagemusha feels as precisely composed, yet overflowing with bold, unreal color, as a painting. In one unforgettable nightmare sequence, Kagemusha even becomes one of Kurosawa's paintings, as the characters run through a surreal, garishly colored dreamscape that was painted by Kurosawa himself.

In terms of sheer beauty, very few films equal Kagemusha. It is masterfully made. The story it tells is a simple but powerful one, similar in its premise to Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper. A petty thief, sentenced to execution, is noted for his incredibly similar appearance to the feudal lord Shingen. The thief is brought before Shingen, and claims that the lord is actually a far greater crook than he is for leading so many to their deaths. Shingen is impressed by the thief's boldness and promises to spare his life if he becomes his decoy. Shingen is killed by a sniper from a rival clan, and the thief becomes his shadow to maintain the illusion that the great lord remains alive. In becoming Shingen, the thief changes. He sees how his simple gestures while posing as the great leader can inspire courage and loyalty in his followers, and give them something to believe in. He grows to love Shingen's young grandson, and shows far more kindness to the boy than the real man ever did. Kagemusha draws suspense and quiet humor out of the thief's charade, as the naturally crude and earthy peasant attempts to bamboozle everyone and is often surprised by his own success.

Yet his charade must ultimately be revealed, which is where Kagemusha becomes a grand tragedy. For all he has learned in becoming a great man's shadow, in many ways the thief's initial assessment was correct. From all this feudal warfare comes needless devastation, and the symbol of unity that Shingen represented was just that - a symbol, far from immutable, and one that is swept away to irreverence once more powerful forces come along. Like Kurosawa's next film, Ran (which, astoundingly, surpasses even this one in greatness), the tragedy of Kagemusha is unflinchingly sad, a cautionary tale that inspires humility. It culminates in a haunting final shot, which communicates all that needs to be said.

Fun fact: Kagemusha was made with the financial support of American filmmakers like Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas. They were aghast to hear that Kurosawa, legendary at this point of his career, was having trouble securing financing for his planned epic, and basically strong-armed American and Japanese studios into bankrolling him. Lucas in particular had been inspired in his work by Kurosawa's earlier films - his Star Wars was deeply influenced by Kurosawa adventures such as The Hidden Fortess.

Watch trailer here

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (J.J. Abrams, United States, 2015)

...speaking of Star Wars, I finally had the chance to revisit the latest installment of the saga, which I was mildly disappointed by on my initial viewing in theaters. Thankfully I enjoyed it a good deal more the second time through, although I still have some issues. The Force Awakens is a prototypical J.J. Abrams movie. It is slick and high-spirited, with a good grasp on characters; it also lacks the kind of creative vision that would make it truly memorable.

Star Wars is like a modern, pop-culture version of old epics such as the Nibelungen cycle. Heroes and villains emerge in new generations, each cycle formed by and echoing what has come before. First Anakin became Darth Vader, then Luke became a Jedi, and now the grand story of good versus evil continues with Rey and Kylo Ren. But there's a fine line between stories being reincarnated and regurgitated, and The Force Awakens sometimes falls on the wrong side. The victory of Return of the Jedi seems to have not mattered, as The Force Awakens resets everything. The Empire is now the First Order and the Rebellion is the Resistance. Han Solo has returned to smuggling. The bad guys have built another Death Star (now an even bigger Death Planet!) with a weak spot, because that worked out so well for them the first two times. There's little suspense in the overarching plot, and a disappointing lack of creativity in expanding the Star Wars universe.

Even though I found its plotting and mythology to be unimaginative and lazy, The Force Awakens makes up for a lot with sheer likability. The dialogue and performances are earnest and good-humored, and all the new characters have instant chemistry together. I was particularly impressed with the new villain, Kylo Ren, whose personal struggle between dark and light sides has an interesting twist. The return to practical effects and old-school creature designs is great fun, too - BB-8 in particular is a marvelous creation. The Force Awakens looks and sounds like a Star Wars movie should. It may not be my ideal continuation of Star Wars, but it is a fun, well-crafted sci-fi adventure.

Watch trailer here