Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle

I've got two films to cover, as I didn't find the time to discuss Sprited Away last week. I think it might be suitable to discuss them in the same post anyway as I find it curious that the films were released one after the other but while Spirited Away may be one of my favorite Miyazaki films, Howl's Moving Castle may be one of my least favorite.

I'm not quite sure what it was about Howl's Moving Castle that didn't sit right with me. To be completely fair I should probably watch it again before deciding I don't like it too much, but first impressions are important.

Howl's Moving Castle feels like Miyazaki trying to cash in on his legacy. Every single frame of it is so gorgeous and dripping with the talents of the best and brightest artists of Japan that speaks to the success that Studia Ghibli has become off of the financial whoppers of Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away. Studio Ghibli had come a long way since its most iconographic film My Neighbor Totoro had to be released alongside Grave of the Fire Flies over fears it wouldn't perform well on its own...

So that brings me back to Howl's Moving Castle. It felt like Eye Candy for the sake of Eye Candy. And Fantasy for the sake of Fantasy. rather than being fascinated into struggling to understand it, I found myself trying to care enough to struggle to understand it. Spirited Away on the other hand, while not always crystal clear, spoke at a much more deep and artistic level to me... it was clear that the Fantasy all served an important purpose... and the beautiful exciting visuals heightened what we had come to actually care about.

I'm also not sure where to fit Howl's Moving Castle in terms of Miyazaki's distinct voice, besides the theme of Howl's pacifism towards the war. Spirited Away seems like an important sequel to My Neighbor Totoro, though...  it delves deeper into fortifying ones spirit through spirituality, tradition, and nature. I'm not quite sure which 10 year old is more tragic - Satsuki or Chihiro. In some ways I have to say it's Chihiro because she's so modern.. We all grew up with Chihiros, and we encounter them daily. The listless child who has a light they can't seem to turn on...  who is jaded 30 or 40 years too soon on and by superficial culture. Satsuki is tragic in a more extraordinary way... having to deal with a sick mother... her tragedy is still heightened by realism, however; I certainly felt for her more upon learning that she's somewhat autobiographical for Miyazaki and his brothers...

It's the ordinariness of Chihiro's tragedy that makes it so powerful.. She's so ordinary that we have to be hit over the head with Spirited Away to even realize it's tragic!

No Face in Sprited away is quite an enigma.. I've been trying to marinate on him quite a bit. It's clear that eating is a huge theme in Spirited Away... Chihiro must eat of the world to keep from vanishing from it. The biscuit of the river god causes no face to vomit out his crazy consumption. All of which was a grotesque depiction and metaphor for materialistic consumption. What I puzzle over with no face though is how he doesn't start indulging in all of his consumption without first being a sycophant having to literally consume other people through false gifts. He doesn't even have a voice prior to consuming that frog guy. It's all quite puzzling but it seems to speak to me at very core level..  like it all somehow makes total sense in spite of its craziness.

The Gods of Princess Mononoke

The Gods of Princess Mononoke are somewhat difficult to get a grip on at first for the Western viewer, though maybe for the Eastern viewer too? I don't know...

I think one safe thing to say about them though is that when the Western viewer watches it, they need to take their spirituality out of the sky, away from an anthropomorphic white male who created humans in his image and into the hands of nature - and its wisdom or lack thereof. Even for the non-religious westerner this is a little bit of an undertaking, I think, because Abrahamic thought is in the atmosphere of our culture and philosophy.. it informs us and centers our world view in subtle and interesting ways.

This spiritual shift towards the Deer god is a really beneficial exercise, I think. I vaguely recall a hilariously dumb quote from Jerry Falwell or a similar idiot about how we can continue to exploit the earth's natural resources as much as we want and not worry about the consequences because God put them there for us and wants us to use them and wont punish us for using them. What a disastrous Lady-Eboshi-esque arrogant position to take!

Compare that to the Deer God of Princess Mononoke. God is Nature, life and death.... this more pantheistic,  holistic balance of the ecosystem. It becomes a logical fallacy to exploit nature and bend it to your whim and will...  Nature, after all, still has the power of life and death - including not just every plant and animal, but every human as well.  Technology and civilization has dramatically altered human's relationship with nature - switched who played by whose rules..  but there's still something nature has on us, and probably always will - and it's a zinger - our own mortality. Even if we don't complicate matters by trying to destroy the Deer God, he he still walks the night taking life... according to its own whim or lack of whim, design or  lack of design.

But to intervene is futile. To try and kill the Deer God makes no sense.. death cannot be destroyed unless life too is destroyed, human lives not exempt. I think that's what the climactic moments of Princess Mononoke tell us. We take the Deer God's head from him and put it in a cylinder and run around with it for too long and the forrest dies, then eventually us too. It dramatically shifts death from its natural course into an unknown and chaotic one. One can't help but think of global warming as a blinded and confused Deer God looking for its head. Miyazaki is asking us to give the head back - even if it is too late. Or, perhaps, it's never too late. Things will change and be different.. The natural Deer God might die but something else will bloom in its place - we don't have to die along with him.  The little kodama at the end assures us that the Deer God is still there - somewhere.

Death is a big thing to wrap our head around. It makes otherwise rational people completely crazy. It is the unknown. It is the last thing nature has on us. I think it's comforting that Miyazaki depicts the death of Okkoto as a loving kiss of release by the Deer God. The Deer God reminds me of Totoro in that sense.. the spiritual king of the forrest.. the comforting wisdom of nature. I can't help but picture a tired and withered Mei with cataracts lying on her death bed after 90 short years of life - when it's her time to go - that moment of release comes as a kiss from Totoro.

Princess Mononke: Miyazaki's Curtain Call

Princess Mononoke was to be Miyazaki's last film - and it shows. It feels like a last statement. It feels like a film he put everything he possibly had into it, and then some. It shows in every single frame of the film. Following perhaps in the wake of The Lion King, the lighting and volume and colors in the traditional 2D cells are a leap above all his previous films. Also, the motion is far more exciting and stunning than his previous works... from Princess Mononoke invading Lady Eboshi's village with the stealth of a ninja and mastery of her blade, to the truly innovative motion of the demon possessed boars.

The first time I saw those demon possessed boars was in my local art house theater where the film was playing in late 1999 - I remember being blown away by them. At that time I was confused by how the effect was even done. If was all traditional cell animation the amount of man hours required to pull it off was hard to contemplate. If computer animated it was impossibly well integrated with the 2D aesthetic!

Now, over 10 years later I still find myself marveling at the effect. It really stood the test of time. I'm also now aware that it indeed utilized state of the art computer animation. But it still stands in contrast to most 2D/3D hybrid animation, including use later in the film when the effect feels off as computer animated vegetation and shrubbery grows as a result of the metamorphosis of the Deer God. The demon possession animation however is brilliantly executed. The motion matching with the 2D cells is flawless, and the frame-rate is reduced in the 3D demonic worms to that of the rest of the animation - this is a rather bold use of restraint since one of the great things about 3D animation is that the in-between frames come for free, and thus brilliant fluidity comes for free - but this fluidity was sacrificed for the overall flawless hybrid blending. But perhaps what fooled me the most was the actual shading of the CG effects. We had all been exposed to Disney's 'toon shading in the Lion King, and that was great... but it's taken to another level in Princess Mononoke. If you pause a frame you can swear you can make out actual strokes of the paint brush. This was clearly a pioneering effort in utilizing new technology to achieve truly novel and mind blowing visual effects. I must applaud Miyazaki and his team for how well it was done.

Miyazaki pulled out all the technical stops to create his Curtain Call, which, as we now know actually turned into the dawning of a new era for Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli to create technical world class animation that is in a league of its own.

Miyazaki also pulled out all the stops in delivering a story, themes, and philosophy. That though, is another blog post entirely. I'll save that for next week after I've had a chance to view the film again.

Duty and Freedom

Freedom and Duty seem to be huge components in Kiki's Delivery Service. The name of the dirigible is "The Spirit of Freedom." Kiki has an unusually heavy duty to fill at such a young age and seems to suffer and grow a lot because of it.

I think freedom versus duty plays a large roll in most people's coming of age. There is that free spirit, and there's also the reality of being a slave to our circumstances. When Kiki delivers that herring pie to the ungrateful granddaughter I think a lot is being said here. Surely the granddaughter is being honest and free when she reveals that she doesn't like these stupid presents her grandmother sends her, but she's also being selfish. How much is selfishness a component of freedom? But then, how much is duty a component to embracing what we as humans need as social animals? We need healthy relationships with family, friends, and our place in society which can appear frighteningly claustrophobic to the free spirit. We kind of hate the granddaughter's audacity to freely state how she truly feels about Grandmother's pies, because she lacks the maturity to see the bigger picture, and what it meant as a Grandmother's duty  to bake for her birthday.

Kiki is alienated from other kids her age and seems to bond better with adults in the film. Kiki's suffering and alienation seems to come from not being able to fit in with the more free-spirited adolescents. Or of being jealous with their being able to be more free; Kiki is after all being asked to grow up faster than them, but not without a sense of loss. Tombo and Ungrateful-Granddaughter are off to explore the Spirit of Freedom together when Kiki is at her lowest and most alienated. Tombo invites her to come with them, of course, but doesn't understand why she turns moody and rejects the invitation.

Kiki's duty might be delivery incidentally, but overall her duty is to be the sole witch of the city she's chosen. In her struggles, though, she loses the innate gift that allows her to perform her duty. She loses confidence, certainly. But she seems to lose the will to carry on the rest of her life under the weight of her duty.

But she regains her will and ability by achieving something important for someone she cares about and doing it visibly to the benefit of the entire society. She rescues Tombo from the Spirit of Freedom gone awry. This, to me, shows that the sometimes unbearable weight of duty upon our shoulders is lightened and made grand for what we ultimately get out of it by finding our place within society, and forming relationships that are more important than our own ego...  which is ultimately more rewarding than being completely free.

In an interesting East vs. West comparison, I find it so interesting how duty is seen as a huge virtue in the East but 'duty' is almost a bad word in America, Land of the Free. Americans hate to admit to themselves that they aren't free. Rugged individualism and freedom are the values America was founded upon, and the values that made America so great, or so the average American is inclined to think. But perhaps Kiki's delivery service reveals something to us in America about duty in such a subtle way that we don't even notice it. Americans aren't free from the laws of nature and society... we in fact do do our duty whether we want to admit it or not. Duty might even be a secret core value we just have an awkward relationship with it.

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I'm actually quite amazed at how rich Kiki's Delivery Service has turned out to be. When I first saw this film I thought it was one of the more simple Miyazaki films thematically. But once you start to look at it, it becomes very richly layered and complex. It's a coming of age story. It explores duty versus freedom, and talent versus becoming jaded. It explores magic versus technology, as well as their peaceful coexistence. The radio and TV are pieces of technology that express music and animation which are art, and art may be one of the last refuges for magic in the modern world. In the epilogue, Kiki is flying magically next to Tombo flying with technology. Kiki's the music and Tombo's the radio.

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Jiji's existence reminded me a lot of a formula used frequently in Disney films. That is of the main protagonist having one or more cute anthropomorphic animal sidekicks that offer a lot of amusement and comedy. But this anthropomorphic Jiji does something that Disney would probably be loathe to do: he's dead by the end of the film. In fact, Disney was undeniably loathe to do it in that they changed this in their dub of the film! Jiji is no longer an anthropomorphic best friend, but rather a pet.. Which actually seems like a great way of showing Kiki's growth. It's kind of bittersweet because it's her immaturity that has died but she's found meaningful best friends in Ursula and Tombo instead. Jiji is her inner child, gone but still there in a in a changed form by the end.

Totoro as a Religious Experience?

I'm not a particularly religious person. I don't identify myself as being of any religion, yet I do find some value in trying to study up on religious ideas a bit. I've come to be of the opinion that religion seems to occur in every society because being a human is difficult. You face problems and stress and difficulties throughout life and religion in its most virtuous forms tends to offer advice and parables and philosophy for coping with these difficulties.

It's with this insight, and with what little I know of Shinto, Tao, and Buddhism that I believe there's a certain eastern philosophy/religion exposition going on in My Neighbor Totoro. Shinto shrines appear throughout. There's a fox shrine at the bus stop where Satsuki first encounters the big Totoro, king of the forrest. There's also a shrine of figures that are the protector of children at the site where Mei's found. I get the sense that Totoro is a very Shinto-ish animistic figure. The encouragement from the adults in the film tends to further this observation. In class we mentioned that western parents tend to discourage non-scientific thinking, but we forget that many western parents do in fact encourage their children to believe the supernatural stories told in the bible (i.e. imaginary friends are fine as long as it's the biblical God or Jesus). Totoro offers comfort to troubled children that are missing something, that are internally conflicted, and who we see try to be stronger than they actually are throughout most of the film.

I argue that Mei and Satsuki do a pretty good and realistic job of not letting the audience, and maybe even themselves realize how much trauma they've experienced at the absence of their mother (though recall the mother isn't fooled as she mentions how sensitive Satsuki is near the end of the film). There's definitely tension building because we see it come to fruition in the exchange when Satsuki tortures Mei about her own fears that their mother might actually die. And still later, in a much more healthy and vulnerable release Satsuki finally allows herself to cry at the water pump to the granny. There are also clues to the tension throughout the first part of the film. The girls act strong and unafraid of the haunted house, but it's revealed that Mei still can't go to the bathroom on her own at night, and Satsuki seems genuinely disconcerted by Kenta's affirmation of the house being haunted! But supposedly she likes haunted houses, right???

This internal conflict within the sisters is the real primary conflict for the film, which is all too subtle yet more powerful than the tension Miyazaki adds with Mei's disappearance and possible drowning. I almost suspect that Mei getting lost was a device added because Miyazaki believed that the primary conflict wasn't overt and suspenseful enough for the movie to work as a conventional film. Also, could Mei being physically lost be a metaphor for her being spiritually lost?

Once you get the idea that the protagonists are themselves the real antagonists (internal conflict), I think the rest of the eastern religious philosophy starts to reveal itself. Such as the ideas in Buddhism that "irrational desire" causes suffering. The mother's illness isn't the antagonist, that's just a fact of life. Rather, the antagonist is the natural human resistance to these facts of life within Mei and Satsuki. The scene in the bathtub also seems to explore Buddhism's enlightened state of being 'awake' or 'lost in the moment.' I get the sense that Buddhism teaches that striving to enjoy life is futile...  such a longing for some abstract perfect life would just make you miserable - rather all you can do is simply enjoy the moment, enjoy now. And in the center of the storm the family manages to enjoy the moment even with the obvious absence of the mother in the bathtub (hence the awkward yet cute/charming shot of Mei's head barely obscuring the father's penis highlighting the fact that it should be the mother in the bathtub). They manage to enjoy the moment so much that it chases the soot spreaders out of the home and into the wind...

The wind is also very important which brings me to the Tao. Tao kind of means "the way." Sort of having a flexibility to go with the flow and adapt and remain in balance and harmony. I believe that the wind kind of represents the way in the film... Such as when Satsuki is interrupted by the wind in her task to collect fire wood. This might show how she's conflicted and again resistant to the facts of life. In that scene she's at odds with "the way." But then in the religious experience of taking flight upon Totoro's belly on the magic top they say "we are the wind" i.e. we are the way. At that moment they are going with the flow, are at peace, and have found release.

They also find release at the very end when the corn is delivered and they run into granny's embrace..  But like the previous releases of laughing in the tub or becoming the wind as they soar through the air with Totoro..  the process of becoming enlightened is an ongoing thing that they are sure to endure more of.

Miyazaki might assure us in that he says that's the last time the girls see Totoro. As Confucius said, "it's actually a troubling day when people need religion."

The Lovably Deplorable - Contradictions are Entertaining

There's something about contradictions in a single character that make those characters appealing and entertaining. This tension of repulsion and endearment is utilized to great success in such mainstream rappers as 2pac, Kanye West, and Eminem. But there's a certain version of the lovably deplorable character that is found in amazing extremes and with masterful execution in anime.

The best example I can think of to illustrate this is everyone's favorite 300 year old uninhibited ephebophile Happosai in Ranma 1/2. He proudly runs around stealing undergarments from high school girls and frequently cops a feel here and there as well. In fact, Happosai is a great master of martial arts but is rendered harmless if he goes too long without creeping out a young lady. For those who haven't seen Ranma 1/2 the description might leave you puzzled as to how he could be lovable or entertaining, but he is in a very powerful way.

Happosai enjoying his latest bounty of women's undergarments.

This archetype of lovably deplorable might be most masterfully executed by Rumiko Takahashi in Ranma 1/2 but I argue that it's this archetype that Miyazaki was probably working off of when he created Dyce from Future Boy Conan and Dola for Castly in the Sky. There's certainly the element of festival at play in both of these characters. Dyce's confused moral compass at one point leads him to attempt to burn our hero Conan alive while he sleeps, but if his lovable deplorability doesn't allow us to excuse his actions in real-time we've certainly forgiven him by the final episode when we cheerfully celebrate his marriage to Monsley.

Dola too seems to have qualities we ought to find unforgivable or revolting. She values self enrichment over the safety of Pazu and Sheeta early in the film. Rationally and logically, just the fact that she's a pirate should disqualify her from the lovable status she has in our hearts by the end of the film. But it's this contradiction that makes her all the more entertaining and endearing.

Perhaps her character design itself highlights contradiction and absurdity. Her pink braids are awkward and jut out of her hair visibly portraying the absurdity of her femininity. This is juxtaposed with Sheeta's braids which are very cute and feminine in a more proper sense. Dola also has morbidly huge breasts which again portray her femininity as a lovable absurdity or contradiction. At the end of the film when she grabs Sheeta and hugs her, the audience might wince as Sheeta is suffocated between her mammoth mammaries. But our wince is not without a sense humor and acceptance... what may be uncomfortable and awkward about that hug only highlights what we've come to love about Dola. The objectionable is a yin to the yang of enjoyment.

These sorts of characters are great fun and ridiculously entertaining..  and there's certainly a delicate comedic genius required to perfect them and pull them off. Miyazaki may not give us the most classic examples but he's definitely competent. This and many other fun/adventurous elements make Castle in the Sky a nice followup to the much more heavy and challenging Nausicaa. Miyazaki doesn't abandon his didacticism at all in Castle in the Sky but he allows us to not care and just have fun if we want.

Arms Outstretched

There're few things more exhilarating than the feeling of being engulfed in wind. It's among the deepest experiences we have as humans within the natural world. Some of my most vivid childhood memories are with an enchantment with the wind. I remember seeing one of those mini-tornados twist through and kick-up leaves in my Kindergarten, and all the kids chasing it. Or how about the first time you felt a wind so strong you thought you could just lay into it and not fall down? If you're like me, you just couldn't help but hold your arms outstretched like bird wings lifting your spirits into flight.

I suspect that if you ask random people what comes to mind with the image of outstretched arms it'll be something like that special feeling of being engulfed in wind. Or something else spiritual or religious, possibly the image of Jesus Christ dying for humanity's sins on the cross. When you google image search "outstretched arms" you get page after page of images along these lines.

Nausicaa assumes this pose twice in the film. Once when she appears as a (telepathic?) vision to Asbel compelling him to stop his attack.

Then once again as she descends upon the hovercraft hauling the baby omu. She's in this position as she conjures up an image of Lastelle for the Pejite man firing at her. She's also in this position as she's crucified by bullets that rip through her shoulder and ankle. It's interesting to note, too, how much her body mirrors the highly stylized image of a bird adorning her Pejiteian tunic.

Wind is a component of flight, and flight is a theme used throughout Miyazaki's catalog. Perhaps he reserved this iconic pose of the human body in Nausicaa for some of the most dramatic moments to help get across this sense of what wind and flight represent. The wind in the valley is a source of purity from the toxins as it blows in from the sea. In that sense it's literally a lifeline to the small civilization. In that sense, arms outstretched in the wind would be a literal embrace of life.. Peace? Freedom? Hope? When you consider what Nausicaa means for humanity - perhaps she is that pose, and that pose is Nausicaa.

The position is also seen at the children's peace memorial at Hiroshima. Here Sadako's arms are in clear reference to the wings of the paper crane, and the crane represents a wish for peace in the world. This message of hope is juxtaposed with the unbearably sad story of Sadako Sasaki. I can't help but notice a certain parallel with Nausicaa and Lastelle: a post apocalyptic shojo wise beyond her years becoming a martyr for peace.

During the nadir of the film, when it seems all hope is lost and Obaba laments to the children that death may be immanent, it's worth noting that wind is completely gone and the air is still and "heavy with anger." Perhaps it's Gaia or the Wind God Nausicaa prays to disapproving of or abandoning the scene? Leaving the fate of humankind in the hands of only those who can control it? Perhaps it's just an artistic way of expressing there's no room at all for the high spirits wind and flight evokes? Or perhaps all the wind in the valley at that moment is lent to Nausiccaa?

At the risk of reading into it too deeply, if spreading your arms like wings is freedom and elation, having one's arms shackled is an incredibly depressing contrast. Is such symbolism at work when Nausicaa releases Lastelle's dead arms? Further does that lend more meaning to the pose as she presents herself as a Lastelle lookalike to Asbel and the other Pejite man with outstretched arms?

After just one viewing of Nausicaa, the image of Nausicaa with outstretched arms stayed with me. It might have been some of the most overt cinematic language placed in the film. But it wasn't until repeated viewing that I begin to consider it in the context of the role wind plays in the film as well as Nausicaa's role as a Massiah who dies for humankind and is then resurrected.

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One other device I'd like to mention is the role Teto plays in helping us gain insight into Nausicaa's character. The first exchange with the fox-squirrel early in the film makes us think Nausicaa has a way of disarming animals.. But later when she says to Kushana, "What are you afraid of? You're just like a scared fox-squirrel." We understand that Nausicaa has insight into not just animals but humans as well. How often is human aggression an act of fear/insecurity rather than something more selfish and sinister? Do we bear a fruitless resistance to change/reality/nature rather than a courageous flexibility and harmony with whatever comes our way? If a viewer had thought that her act of saving Kushana from the crashing airplane was a foolish and possibly treasonous act of aiding and abetting of the enemy, we realize instead the omnipotent wisdom behind that act, with just the analogy of calming Teto.

I like how they're similarly colored, too. Primarily golden with green accents (Teto's eyes, Kushana's jewelry and eyes)