The Tale of Princess Kaguya

Isao Takahata's The Tale of Princess Kaguya is a thematically rich and artistically beautiful film.  As it may be the director's final feature and the last feature to come from Studio Ghibli,  the studio exits on a high note.  This film and Miyazaki's The Wind Rises are both landmark films that challenge accepted notions of what an animated film should be.  Only time will tell if they serve as inspiration for other artists or remain outliers.

It is impossible to talk about Princess Kaguya without discussing key story points below.

A poor bamboo cutter discovers a child within a tree.  She grows unnaturally fast.  The bamboo cutter later discovers gold and fine fabrics in a similar manner and takes it to mean that heaven wishes the girl to be brought up as a princess.  His wife is obedient to his wishes, but more sensitive to the child than he is.

The child revels in living in the woods, playing with other poor children and being surrounded by nature.  However, her father and mother move her to the capital, where she may no longer act as she likes but must conform to society's expectations for a young woman of nobility.  She respects the wishes of her parents, but as she gets increasingly immersed in the society's ways, she becomes more unhappy.  She is desired by high status suitors, including the king.  She is able, by her wits and some magic to elude marriage.  She seeks to escape back to her childhood environment, but the world has moved on and she realizes that her chance for happiness is over.  She is called back to heaven against her will, regretting missed opportunities and sad at what she must leave behind.  Her father finally realizes his mistake as he loses her.

The central question of the film is what constitutes happiness.  For the bamboo cutter, it is being able to give his child what society says are advantages.  For her suitors, it is taking a special wife to add to their status.  For the princess, it is obeying her parents.  All of them are wrong.

The bamboo cutter learns that the advantages he has showered on the princess have gone against her  nature.  The suitors are unable to keep their pledges to the princess in order to win her hand.  Two face embarrassment, one the loss of wealth, one the loss of his illusions, and two have their lives endangered, all for a woman whose face they have never seen.  The princess learns that the natural world is superior to life in the capital and that acting according to her own wishes is more satisfying than obedience to her parents, especially when the result is to reduce her to a mere ornament. 

All of these characters are burdened with regrets due to poor choices and paths not taken.  When heaven comes to reclaim the princess, a clear metaphor for death, there is much pain for the characters who can no longer avoid acknowledging their mistakes.

Social class is a great divider in this film.  When the princess and her mother spend time in the mansion kitchen and garden as an escape from the rigid behaviour expected of them, the father cannot understand why.  When the princess journeys to the countryside to see the cherry blossoms, a young child, as excited by the sight as she is, bumps into her.  Instead of them being able to share their happiness, the child is snatched away by its mother, who prostrates herself in front of the princess and begs forgiveness.  Sharing joy is forbidden across class lines.  When one of the princess's childhood friends is caught stealing a chicken, he is brutally beaten, but when one of her suitors fails to pay some artisans, he escapes without punishment.

The characters in this film don't understand where happiness lies.  Society has created divisions and rules that stifle people while claiming to exalt them.  Nature is more beautiful than anything people have created, yet people choose to leave nature behind.  People are blind to each others' needs.  Awareness comes only in retrospect, when it is too late to correct poor choices.  In short, the characters are fully human, doing what they think is best but unable to see their mistakes.

The artwork, especially for the scenes in the countryside, is exquisite.  The animation varies somewhat; early scenes with the bamboo cutter and the children seem to be the strongest overall, but Takahata's direction is capable of getting dramatic impact from minimal movement in some later scenes.  The softness of the linework and the watercolour backgrounds are refreshing after so many years of computer animation.  The hands of the artists are visible everywhere, not just in the pre-production artwork.

The Tale of Princess Kaguya, like The Wind Rises, is more dramatically sophisticated than animated films made for North America.  The willingness to embrace characters who are flawed and to acknowledge the existence of tragedy separates these films from the feelgood fantasies churned out by Hollywood.  The term "family film" really means "we won't do anything to upset your children."  By limiting itself to this genre, North American feature animation has neutered itself, spending fortunes to divert audiences from real life instead of helping to illuminate it.

I am deeply grateful for Studio Ghibli's existence.  While the level of craft in their films doesn't always conform to what North American audiences expect, the intelligence in them surpasses anything animated that Hollywood offers.  Ghibli's films, in particular The Wind Rises and The Tale of Princess Kaguya, set a standard that Hollywood will most likely ignore.  But if feature animation has a future beyond amusing parents while babysitting their children, it doesn't have to look any further than what Miyazaki and Takahata have accomplished.

The Wind Rises

The Wind Rises, viewed at the Toronto International Film Festival, is most likely Miyazaki's last feature film.  It departs from his previous work in many ways.  It is a film of contemplation more than action.  The fantasy elements that Miyazaki has used so effectively are present only in the main character's dreams.    The dreams themselves have ties to the real world, as Jiro Hirokoshi converses with Caproni, an Italian aircraft designer that Jiro has only read about.  Jiro's waking life is our world, with all its problems, and his dreams are related to his real world concerns.

The young Jiro meets Caproni in a dream

While flying is Jiro's ambition, he is too nearsighted to become a pilot.  His compromise is to become an aeronautical engineer and design the planes that he is unable to fly.  While he is interested in planes for their beauty, his work is financed by the Japanese military establishment that has other plans for the machines.

Just as Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima is the Japanese perspective on events depicted in his movie Flags of our Fathers, Hayao Miyazaki's The Wind Rises is in some way a Japanese perspective on William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives.  In both films, ordinary people pursue their goals but are caught up in World War II.  Both films have a similar image near their conclusions: a graveyard of ruined aircraft.

Two events early in the film are the story in miniature.  The first is the Tokyo earthquake and fire of 1923.  While a disaster overall, it prompts heroic action and the rebirth of the city.  Then there is Caproni's dream plane, built after World War I, which crashes on its test flight.  The first disaster is beyond human control and the second is the result of human failure.  In each case, there is disappointment and tragedy, yet people persevere and continue to pursue their goals.  In a dream, Caproni asks Jiro if he would prefer a world with or without pyramids.  The implication is that their construction created both human suffering and beauty.  Both Jiro and Caproni prefer a world with pyramids, a statement that creation is worth suffering for.  As the earthquake shows, there will be suffering in any case, creation or no.

The Wind Rises is both profoundly realistic, unafraid to recognize the disasters and suffering (both natural and man-made) that people must endure, and also profoundly optimistic, in that people continue to follow dreams despite their troubles.  It is a film made by an old man, one who understands that there are no unequivocal happy endings.  Tragedy and disappointment are inevitable in each life.  The pursuit of creating something beautiful stands in opposition to that, the only thing that elevates people beyond mere survival.  

It is not a film for children, not because there is anything objectionable in it but because I suspect it would bore most children.  The film is about adult concerns: the workplace, marriage, politics and death.

I'm curious as to why Disney has decided to distribute this film and also curious as to how they will market it.  Given how hard they worked to shield children from seeing Pecos Bill smoking, Disney can't be happy that several characters in The Wind Rises are chain smokers.  Advertising this as "from the director of Spirited Away" may be literally true but will not represent this film accurately to the family audience.  I doubt it's going to appeal much to weekend moviegoers at the mall as this is not what general audiences have been trained to expect from animated entertainment.

Miyazaki has broken new ground for himself here, stepping away from fantasy to offer a perspective on Japan's past and the value of creativity to human existence.  This film will not please all his fans but he knew that this film would be his final statement. He chose to address his society about the things that he values and those he disdains.  That the film has provoked some controversy in Japan is evidence of Miyazaki's decision to take risks.

I don't know if I'd consider the film a masterpiece.  Is it as good as Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away or Ponyo?  I'll need more viewings to solidify my thoughts.  However, it is an important film, both as part of Miyazaki's body of work and as another advance for mature animated films.

Miyazaki's retirement, while inevitable, is a tragedy for animation as a whole.  His exit will leave a gaping hole in the animation landscape.  We've been blessed to have so many films from him and his compatriots at Studio Ghibli.  The Wind Rises might not be Miyazaki's best film, but it might be his most important.

Controversial Miyazaki II

Updated below.

“My wife and staff would ask me, ‘Why make a story about a man who made weapons of war?’” Miyazaki said in a 2011 interview with Japan’s Cut magazine. “And I thought they were right. But one day, I heard that Horikoshi had once murmured, ‘All I wanted to do was to make something beautiful.’ And then I knew I’d found my subject… Horikoshi was the most gifted man of his time in Japan. He wasn’t thinking about weapons… Really all he desired was to make exquisite planes.”

More on the controversy surrounding Hayao Miyazaki's latest film, The Wind Rises.  For an earlier post about this, go here.

Here's the trailer with English subtitles.  For those of you in Toronto, the film will be playing at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Controversial Miyazaki

I would look forward to any new film directed by Miyazaki, but I'm especially curious about The Wind Rises.  It's about Jiro Horikoshi, the designer of the Zero, the Japanese fighter plane that was used extensively in World War II.  The subject matter is far from films like Totoro and very far from North American animated features in theatres this summer.

What's also interesting is that the film is politically controversial in Japan (this article is now behind a login and password.  Using bugmenot.com, I got in using a login of what@yourmom.dom and a password of updude).  Miyazaki has written that that it was "a truly stupid war," which has angered Japanese nationalists who want to change Japan's constitution to allow for military aggression.

I'm wondering what company, if any, will pick up distribution for North America.  A Disney too afraid to release Song of the South hardly seems a candidate.  While Gkids has released Ghibli films, this subject matter is not aimed at their usual audience.  Perhaps some other indie distributor will pick up the film.  As there is a dearth of animated features specifically aimed at adults, I hope someone does.

Needless to say, I won't be holding my breath waiting for a North American animated feature that tackles Viet Nam, Iraq, drone warfare or the national security state.  While I can point to live action features that have questioned government policy or the official interpretation of history, North American animation is too timid.  Mustn't upset the kiddies.

(link via The Comics Reporter)