Miyazaki Minus the Magic

TALES FROM EARTHSEA, Goro Miyazaki's adaptation of Oregon SF author Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea stories, is finally playing in the U.S., three years after its debut in Japan. (The reason for the delay: SyFy Channel had the exclusive U.S. rights to the Earthsea stories until this year.) And one of the five theaters in the U.S. showing the movie is the Landmark here in West L.A.

I wish I could recommend that you run out and see it if it's playing near you. Unfortunately, I can't. I saw the movie on a DVD I picked up during our 2007 Japan trip (thank you, Disney, for putting English subtitles on the Japanese DVDS of Studio Ghibli movies); and found it drained of most of the magic prevalent in the anime made by Goro's father, Hayao Miyazaki. I blogged about TALES OF EARTHSEA here (http://barercave.blogspot.com/2008/02/nausicaa-vs-gedo-senkai-atonement.html)

It's great to see anime on a big screen. And EARTHSEA does boast character designs based on the elder Miyazaki's art. But EARTHSEA serves primarily as a reminder of everything extraordinary about Hayao Miyazaki's movies -- because all of that is missing from EARTHSEA.

Nausicaa vs. Gedo Senkai: Atonement

While bicycling around Culver City this morning, enjoying the splash of sunshine before the oncoming rainstorms, I had further thoughts about NAUSICAA IN THE VALLEY OF THE WIND, which I posted about below.

NAUSICAA is a rich enough movie that one can watch it several times, and each time come away with something different. On this viewing, what struck me was one of the recurring themes in Hayao Miyazaki's movies: cleaning up your own mess -- or, as one of the characters in SPIRITED AWAY puts it, "Finish[ing] what you started." In NAUSICAA, "your mess" is interpreted broadly; and various characters are involved in cleaning up messes their clan, their nation, or even their fellow species created. Ultimately, (spoiler warning) the engine that drives the plot is the Earth's millennia - long attempt to clean up the mess humanity made of the world -- an attempt that, it is quite likely, mankind will not survive.

A subsidiary theme in NAUSICAA is atonement: realizing you did something wrong to someone, and working to make up for it. That's another iteration of cleaning up your mess. And again, the concept is applied on a collective scale. Characters are constantly apologizing for what they, their countrymen, their fellow humans, or their swarm did. A further subtheme is bringing about atonement as a form of diplomacy. Nausicaa does this often: She sacrifices her physical well-being to aggressors, so that they will feel bad about what they've done, abandon their aggression, and devote their energies to atonement instead. This works with some (those with the innate goodness to realize they've screwed up) and not with others (those so convinced they're doing the right thing that they won't be swayed).

I can't help but compare this with GEDO SENKAI (and again, spoiler warnings are appropriate). The movie begins with the main character, a prince, savagely killing his father -- committing both patricide and regicide. This act is never fully explained in the movie. Yet the goal of his character arc is his forgiveness of himself for this act!! This is the opposite of atonement; it is seeking sanctuary after committing a crime. It is an ultimately unsatisfying resolution of the story, because fundamentally an unexplained crime requires atonement, not forgiveness.

I've only read the first of Ursula LeGuin's EARTHSEA books, the source material for GEDO SENKAI, so I can't address based on personal knowledge the degree to which this unbalance originates in the adapted material. But LeGuin herself has commented that it originates with the adaptors. She has also, however, conveyed the comments of a correspondent from Japan that the movie has found an audience with those who seek to forgive themselves for unexplainable sins, real or imagined. Which still leaves the question: When is self-forgiveness deserved? And when is the proper response atonement?

Oh, and the beer bottle? They sold this beer at the Ghibli Museum's outdoor cafe. "Kaze No Tani" means "Valley of the Wind." Apparently, atonement gives one a mighty thirst.

Aero in the Valley of the Wind

NAUSICAA OF THE VALLEY OF THE WIND is my all-time favorite Hayao Miyazaki movie. It's the first feature Miyazaki directed from his own story. When we went to Japan in 2004, on our first full day there, we went to the Ghibli Museum, which was devoted to Miyazaki's work. That night, when we went to Akihibara, I bought one Region 2 DVD: NAUSICAA -- which had just been released on DVD in Japan, and had never been released uncut on American video at that point. When our tour went to a Chinese restaurant in Ikebukuro later that night, guess what was playing on the restaurant's TV -- NAUSICAA.

So when the American Cinematheque played a rare big-screen showing of NAUSICAA this evening at the Aero theater in Santa Monica, how could we help but go? Apparently, a lot of people had the same idea -- the audience was full.

The only other time I saw the movie at a theater was when the horribly sliced up version, WARRIORS OF THE WIND, was shown at the LA Animation Festival in 1985. This version, like that one, was dubbed. But thankfully, it was a far more faithful dub -- and the film itself uncut.

The dub featured such actors as Patrick Stewart (Lord Yupa, naturally), Uma Thurman (Kushana), Chris Sarandon (Kurotowa), and Shia Lebouf (Asbell), and it wasn't too bad. But it wasn't quite up to the quality of such other Disney dubs of Miyazaki films as PORCO ROSSO or SPIRITED AWAY; or the celebrated dub of PRINCESS MONONOKE written by Neil Gaiman. And I'll always prefer the subtitled Japanese language film, particularly due to Sumi Shimamoto's performance as Nausicaa.

And the film. Oh my, the film. I've seen it many times, but it still has the power to squeeze some moisture out of my tearducts. Miyazaki's later films may be much more slickly animated (heck, this one even animates giant pillbugs by using sliding paper cutouts), and they have some excellent stories and characters; but nothing matches this one. And what character could match Nausicaa -- the teenage princess who's an ace flyer, a plant biologist, an incredible warrior (she wipes out a room full of sword and gun toting soldiers, using only a staff -- and it looks believable), a leader, a hero (she constantly finds herself saving both male and female characters, left and right), and someone who will fly toward a machine gun, unarmed, with her arms spread wide. And on top of that, she's compassionate and humble. As Amy mentioned, those parents whose daughters are infatuated with Disney princesses should show the girls this film; here's a princess who's a real role model.

Watching NAUSICAA brought to mind my recent viewing of GEDO SENKAI: TALES OF EARTHSEA, the debut animated feature from Hayao Miyazaki's son Goro Miyazaki. The character designs in GEDO SENKAI strongly resemble the elder Miyazaki's in NAUSICAA. But Goro's direction just doesn't have the storytelling art of Hayao's. Many scenes in GEDO SENKAI serve no purpose except to get the characters from point A to point B. Such a scene would be unthinkable in a Hayao Miyazaki movie. Every corner you turn in a Hayao Miyazaki film leads you to a new treat -- something that surprises you, or thrills you, or amuses you, or makes you gasp with wonder at its beauty.