The Boy and the Heron (Hayao Miyazaki, 2023)

Angry birds

Both a pain and a pleasure to write about a new Hayao Miyazaki film-- a pleasure because for some three years after the man's previous last film it looked as if he had really retired and for seven years after looked as if he'd never finish the film before, well, you know. But finish he did, and now pain comes from the possibility this may really be his last-- he's 82, the picture certainly feels like a summation, and as high points go this as good as any to bow out on. 

The Wind Rises (Hayao Miyazaki, 2013)

Skyward bound 

(Warning-- article discusses Miyazaki's film (and his manga Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind) in some detail, including plot twists and surprises. 

In short-- see the film (maybe read the manga) first)

Can't help but feel a sharp pang watching The Wind Rises (2013), knowing this to be Hayao Miyazaki's last feature; can't help but see this as a valedictory work, a summing up of his thoughts and feelings about art and aviation and everything else at this point in his life. 

My Neighbor Totoro (Hayao Miyazaki, 1988)

Monster, Inc.

(CAUTION: plot and narrative twists--which aren't all that much and anyway aren't the heart of the film--to be discussed in explicit detail!)

Hard to believe Hayao Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro was seen as a too-risky project, and had to be double-featured in its original commercial run with Isao Takahata's Grave of the Fireflies, an adaptation of a well-known World War 2 short story. Both made a modest profit (the former earning $6.1 million in Japan and Europe according to Wikipedia) but Totoro went on to become a family favorite, earning $265 million home video sales in Japan and the USA (again according to Wiki--sometimes you wonder at their figures). Totoro has since grown into a small but persistent cultural phenomenon: Studio Ghibli (which produced the film) adopted the creature as its corporate logo; a Japanese astronomer named an asteroid 10160 Totoro; biologists have dubbed a Vietnamese velvet worm Eoperipatus totoro; and I've spotted stuffed toys being sold in Rotterdam stores.

Totoro is considered a family-friendly delight, purest sunshine and cheer. Some fans though make the case that the picture is darker than it seems, that despite the animator's reputation for creating epic adventures like Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and Princess Mononoke this little production is his true masterpiece.

Princess Mononoke (Hayao Miyazaki, 1997)

Gods and monsters

(Warning: article does not summarize the film's story--there are websites for that--but does go into detailed discussion of plot and narrative twists)

Call Princess Mononoke (Mononoke Hime, 1997) Studio Ghibli's biggest production to date; call it an attempted sequel to the 1984 Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, spinning out of control and grown to monstrous proportions; call it Hayao Miyazaki's attempt to directly take on Akira Kurosawa's jidaigeki films, in particular Seven Samurai. The animation outfit would go on to bigger efforts monetarily speaking but in terms of sweep complexity ambition this may be their greatest accomplishment.

Porco Rosso (Hayao Miyazaki, 1992)

Tocino

Hayao Miyazaki's Porco Rosso started out as a manga for a modeling magazine turned into a short for Japan Airlines grew and grew and grew into his sixth animated feature--easily his oddest and most personal film.

Grave of the Fireflies (Hotaru no Haka, Isao Takahata, 1988)

Child's play

Some years back for history class I showed my students Isao Takahata's Hotaru no haka (Grave of the Fireflies, 1988), about a brother and his younger sister--Seita and little Setsuko--struggling to survive in wartime Japan (warning: film's story discussed in close detail).

Pom Poko (The Racoon War, Isao Takahata, 1994)

Tribute to Isao Takahata (1935 - 2018)

Guerrilla warfare

Isao Takahata's Pom Poko (The Raccoon War, 1994) begins with a little song where children call on the tanuki (Japanese raccoon dogs) to come play and the tanuki reply that they can't--they're too busy eating pickled plums. The film goes on to outline the dogs' plight: land developers want to convert the forest of Tama Hills into suburbs--the same forest the tanukis have lived in for countless generations.

The good if not great films of 2015

The good if not great films of 2015

Participated in two End-of-the-Year surveys: Film Comment's and Sight and Sound's, the latter having the advantage of making every voter's list (mine included) available online. 

Two titles that impressed me the most--Aleksei German's Hard to be a God and Isao Takahata's The Tale of Princess Kaguya were released in their respective countries in 2013, on DVD in the USA in 2015; they're included in my 2014 tally. 

Good as the following may be I really haven't found anything that engaged and moved me as much as those two masters' final works (one died, the other retired)--hence my title.

Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki, 2001)

Little girl lost

(Warning: Story and plot twists discussed in explicit detail)

Hayao Miyazaki's Sento Chihiro no kamikakushi (Spirited Away, 2001), about a girl named Chihiro whose parents have been turned into pigs, has been called everything from an anime variation on Charles Dodgson's Alice books to a fantasy treatise on parent-child relations in modern Japan to (as Miyazaki himself put it) a parable on developing maturity in ten-year-old girls.

The Tale of Princess Kaguya (Kaguya-hime no Monogatari, Isao Takahata, 2013)

Little girl lost

Call him Hayao Miyazaki's dark elder. Where Miyazaki has earned a small but enduring popularity--not to mention a gold-plated doorstop--in the West, longtime collaborator Isao Takahata was content to toil in relative obscurity (if anything Takahata has earned the respect of a handful of Western critics despite his apparent lack of interest in drawing their attention). You see a trace of the latter's sensibility in the former's work: an awareness of larger forces--social, political, historical--swirling around the protagonists; a sense of responsibility towards more than just one's own survival. Where Takahata differs most from Miyazaki I'd say is in his pitiless regard--his tendency to bring a story to its conclusion no matter how cruel or unhappy the conclusion may be.

Best Films of 2014: Four Lists

Best films of 2014: four lists

First:

The Babadook, Birdman, Boyhood, Gone Girl, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Interstellar, Nightcrawler, Selma, Under the Skin--the usual suspects--are not all bad films (when talking 'bad' two titles in particular come to mind), but for one reason or another the flaws felt more significant than the virtues.

Plus said titles have no shortage of supporters and even less need for further promotion. If they happen to be nominated or win the Golden Dildo, more power to them, whatever. No feelings for or against their victory--such as it is--whatsoever.