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June 27, 2005 The best animator in the world has done it again. Howl's Moving Castle is spectacular. But first, some background on some of Hayao Miyazaki other works that I'm personally familiar with. Back in the 80s, I watched a movie called, “Warriors of the Wind”, and have fond memories of it. It was a bizarre tale of a dying world with a nation of folk living in a protected valley – something about the wind keeping poisons out. Most of the world became a toxic jungle, but this valley was safe. Anyway, these was this girl that had special abilities to tame the wild beasts of the toxic jungle, and she earned the respect of even her enemies. A neighboring kingdom was in the process of invading her valley. The flick just stuck out in my memory like a neon sign; nothing else from my childhood was quite like it, a strange combination of bizarre beasts and wacky flying machines. Fast forward about 20 years and enter, “My Neighbor, Totoro”. We picked this up for the kids and were just amazed. What a wonderfully unique children's film! Our version is in Japanese with subtitles. Some of the kids can't read yet but this movie is so well made that it's not even necessary. Looking it up on IMDB, I made the connection that Miyazaki had made this and that strange 80s movie that I remember nostalgically. Watching Warriors of the Wind again as an adult, I see it's a well made movie, but not his best. His other movies just blow me away. I haven't seen them all yet – so many movies, so little time! Kiki's Delivery Service is another wonderful family kids movie, which seems to have been the inspiration for Sabrina the Teenage Witch, complete with talking black cat. All of the Miyazaki hallmarks are present, strong young female leads, quaint European towns, fantastical elements and flying machines – got to love those flying machines! His works seem to take place in and around an alternative universe where WW2 never happened, and the blimp and pre-jet engine ideas took off and diversified into all manner of creations. Castle In The Sky is another great movie; the imagination of this man is limitless. Disney's Atlantis is a poor attempt to copy this masterpiece. Instead of a city under ground, however, we have a city in the sky, hidden in a storm cloud. We see another of Miyazaki common threads – environmentalism. Paradoxically, he both seems to love technology and hate it at the same time. Princess Mononoke perhaps best illustrates his environmental views. This is a great film, but it's the only of his films [that I've seen] that I would not recommend for kids. It's a very violent film, and goes deep into conflicted characters. Not that his other movies don't have conflicted characters – he never has villains that are pure evil; they always have some redeeming features and/or do bad things for good reasons. Mononoke takes this to an extreme. Of course, his crowning achievement is Spirited Away. What an utterly gorgeous movie this is! It has, beyond a doubt, the best 2D animation ever filmed. None of these movies are 3D computer generated films, by the way. This one may be a bit scary for very young kids, having a creature that gluttonously eats several other creatures. We see that they are released unharmed latter, but the depiction is a bit more than spooky. Howls Moving Castle is released in the US under the Disney banner. Disney closed [or sold?] it's 2D animation shop, putting its faith in 3D films instead. While I have no reason to doubt that most all future animation will be 3D, buddying up with Miyazaki is probably the best think Disney can do to keep their image as premier world-class animation shop. Howl's doesn't reach the 10/10 level that Spirited Away does, but it comes close. It's a marvelous tale of a conflicted wizard who lives in a rather amazing castle that walks around and doubles as a portal to several different locations; it can be in several places at once, one of them physically. A dial above the door selects where you end up when you step outside. The heroine is a shy young woman that has a nasty spell put on her which makes her an old woman. Like all of his female leads, she is selfless, brave, humble, and every other positive virtue you can list; the morality of his films have universal appeal, with ideas such as redemption and forgiveness, as well as kindness and selflessness. One thing I love about exposing kid to these works is the way they introduce foreign customs, sometimes almost under the radar. Miazaki doesn't dwell on these, but the taboos and political correctness of the Japanese is quite different from our own. In Howl's, one of the characters smokes, for example – we don't see this in American animation any more. Many of the child characters in his movies have good manners in the extreme, and respect is always shown, even to your enemies. In Totoro, there is a completely innocent scene where a father bathes with his two daughters, one of which is at least 10 years old; apparently, this isn't a taboo in Japan like it is here. Hard work is utterly emphasized in every Miyazaki movie, as is cleanlinesses. In Totorro we see an almost fanatic effort to keep the floors clean, with shame displayed at walking around in your shoes or with dirty bare feet. These types of situations are great openers for discussion for non-Japanese kids. It's sometimes nice to have movies that don't skimp on plot, or action, or amazing visuals, while at the same time, don't have lazy, apathetic kids who excel at manipulating their parents and cheating in school or getting out of doing homework, as we so often see in American-made kids movies. Here are some links: the trailer for Howl's Moving Castle, the trailer for Spirited Away, Roger Ebert's review of My Neighbor Totoro, the WikiPedia page for Miazaki, the IMDB page for Miyazaki. ------------ About the author Frederick Smith: I enjoy writing about the positive virtues of humanism - humanists are the good guys. Email: dahlek65@yahoo.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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