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sanetWhoa, social life ahoy. I normally blog on weekends, but the past few weeks I've been out of the house before noon and back after midnight all weekend, meeting people, going for lunches and bbq's, and seeing the sights with new friends. I'm only free today because a planned reading group meeting has fallen through. So while I have an hour free, here's a quick review of Studio Ghibli's latest film, which I had the good luck to see in Tokyo last week.
Karigurashi no Arietti. Dir. Yonebayashi Hiromasa. Studio Ghibli, 2010.
This film marks Yonebayashi Hiromasa's feature-length directorial debut for Studio Ghibli, and there's a certain sense that something is riding on it, a matter of studio succession. The question has been circulating for years: who will be Miyazaki Hayao's heir? His son Goro dropped the ball on Tales of Earthsea (not that I blame him. I can't imagine the pressure, the expectations he must have faced.) Yonebayashi is only in his mid-30's, but he's been doing key animation and animation direction with Ghibli since Princess Mononoke. So, does he have the chops for it?
My first impression is that Arrietty is a consummate Ghibli film. Produced by Suzuki Toshio and with a screenplay by Miyazaki himself, it features all the elements that make their films great, from the weird, imaginative creatures to the strong female lead. Because of that, though, there's a slight sense that the studio heads are playing it safe and sticking to a pattern that works. It has Miyazaki's auteurist fingerprints all over it despite Yonebayashi's "young blood." Whether that's a good thing or not depends on how much you like the Ghibli way.
The heroine, Arrietty, is a prime example. Arrietty is only a few inches high, but she's an energetic, independent girl of 14 who takes care of her nervous, fluttery mother Homily and follows her father Pod on dangerous missions to "borrow" necessary goods from the human world without a moment's hesitation. She personifies the Japanese word "genki": healthy, bursting with life. She's a character on the Nausicaa/Kiki model, that shoujo figure who faces the problems of growing up in her world with determination, learning to overcome her own lapses and failures. Like Nausicaa, Arrietty is incredibly appealing, even inspirational. How can you not like a character whose first find as a borrower is straight pin which she uses as a sword -a wonderful symbolic combination of "women's work" (sewing) and epic gallantry? Also like Nausicaa, however, she's also a bit too ideal sometimes. She's so admirable it's almost unreal. Tom Lamarre has written in The Anime Machine about the problematic near-deification of the shoujo in Nausicaa, and his analysis could be applied -differently, but to similar effect- to Arrietty as well.
Certain of the other characters are a bit over-drawn as well. Homily is practically Victorian in her hysterical fits of panic at the slightest sign of danger and her love of all things domestic. Stoic Pod is solidly the man of the house. Even more troubling is the secondary character Spiller, a borrower who lives alone in the wild and is cast as the prototypical Primitive: dark-skinned, face paint, can't quite figure out how to sit in a chair properly, refuses the family's offer of cookies and tea because he has a whole grasshopper leg (visually echoing a deer leg) stashed in his rough cloak...
That's not to say that the film feels stereotypical or cookie-cutter sterile. It has great heart, especially in depicting the impossible relationship between Arietty and a gentle human boy, Shou. The artwork, too, has that warm, handcrafted look: vivid backgrounds so painterly as to seem Impressionistic, with leaves and petals rendered as dabs of colour rather than outlined shapes. The palettes are brilliant, and the sets cozily full of beautiful and homey things. Like other Ghibli films, it's a joy to watch. It's just that it's so much like other Ghibli films.
I think the question now is not who can carry on Miyazaki's legacy, but how his successor will be able to make artistic innovations within the paradigms that have become Studio Ghibli's hallmarks.
Karigurashi no Arietti. Dir. Yonebayashi Hiromasa. Studio Ghibli, 2010.
This film marks Yonebayashi Hiromasa's feature-length directorial debut for Studio Ghibli, and there's a certain sense that something is riding on it, a matter of studio succession. The question has been circulating for years: who will be Miyazaki Hayao's heir? His son Goro dropped the ball on Tales of Earthsea (not that I blame him. I can't imagine the pressure, the expectations he must have faced.) Yonebayashi is only in his mid-30's, but he's been doing key animation and animation direction with Ghibli since Princess Mononoke. So, does he have the chops for it?
My first impression is that Arrietty is a consummate Ghibli film. Produced by Suzuki Toshio and with a screenplay by Miyazaki himself, it features all the elements that make their films great, from the weird, imaginative creatures to the strong female lead. Because of that, though, there's a slight sense that the studio heads are playing it safe and sticking to a pattern that works. It has Miyazaki's auteurist fingerprints all over it despite Yonebayashi's "young blood." Whether that's a good thing or not depends on how much you like the Ghibli way.
The heroine, Arrietty, is a prime example. Arrietty is only a few inches high, but she's an energetic, independent girl of 14 who takes care of her nervous, fluttery mother Homily and follows her father Pod on dangerous missions to "borrow" necessary goods from the human world without a moment's hesitation. She personifies the Japanese word "genki": healthy, bursting with life. She's a character on the Nausicaa/Kiki model, that shoujo figure who faces the problems of growing up in her world with determination, learning to overcome her own lapses and failures. Like Nausicaa, Arrietty is incredibly appealing, even inspirational. How can you not like a character whose first find as a borrower is straight pin which she uses as a sword -a wonderful symbolic combination of "women's work" (sewing) and epic gallantry? Also like Nausicaa, however, she's also a bit too ideal sometimes. She's so admirable it's almost unreal. Tom Lamarre has written in The Anime Machine about the problematic near-deification of the shoujo in Nausicaa, and his analysis could be applied -differently, but to similar effect- to Arrietty as well.
Certain of the other characters are a bit over-drawn as well. Homily is practically Victorian in her hysterical fits of panic at the slightest sign of danger and her love of all things domestic. Stoic Pod is solidly the man of the house. Even more troubling is the secondary character Spiller, a borrower who lives alone in the wild and is cast as the prototypical Primitive: dark-skinned, face paint, can't quite figure out how to sit in a chair properly, refuses the family's offer of cookies and tea because he has a whole grasshopper leg (visually echoing a deer leg) stashed in his rough cloak...
That's not to say that the film feels stereotypical or cookie-cutter sterile. It has great heart, especially in depicting the impossible relationship between Arietty and a gentle human boy, Shou. The artwork, too, has that warm, handcrafted look: vivid backgrounds so painterly as to seem Impressionistic, with leaves and petals rendered as dabs of colour rather than outlined shapes. The palettes are brilliant, and the sets cozily full of beautiful and homey things. Like other Ghibli films, it's a joy to watch. It's just that it's so much like other Ghibli films.
I think the question now is not who can carry on Miyazaki's legacy, but how his successor will be able to make artistic innovations within the paradigms that have become Studio Ghibli's hallmarks.
