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Hayao Miyazaki

Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind

Japanese title Kaze No Tani No Nausicaa
Director Hayao Miyazaki
Producer Toshio Suzuki
Screenplay Hayao Miyazaki (based on his manga of the same title)
Character design Hayao Miyazaki
Photography Takashi Shirakami
Music Joe Hisaishi
Sound design Shigeharu Shiba
Production Co. Studio Ghibli & Tokuma Shoten Publishing
World Sales Buena Vista
Print Source Tokuma International, Tokyo via Buena Vista, Burbank
Language Japanese - subtitled / 35mm / 1984 / 118 minutes

Inspired by a 12th century folk tale about a princess who could talk to insects, NAUSICAA transposes that idea of a human's hypersensitivity to the natural order of life into a futuristic world ravaged by ecological disorder. The future of NAUSICAA is one where deadly, microscopic spore (housed in a massive, decayed forest belt, now called the Sea of Corruption) could at any point be carried by winds to devastate further land mass. Down wind from the Sea of Corruption lies the Valley of The Wind. Nausicaa is the warrior princess of the Valley, a territory whose frail existence is based on wind technologies (showcasing a key Miyazaki design aesthetic of colliding old and new technologies). Nausicaa knows well that the decayed state of the world is due to mankind's upsetting nature's order. As a leader of humans, she embodies ethical and political clashes with a maturity, awareness and reserve that far out-stretches her years. Her consequent decisions and actions make for a thrilling and engrossing drama of human conflict.

Laputa: Sky Castle

Japanese title Tenkuu No Shiro Laputa
Director Hayao Miyazaki
Producer Toshio Suzuki
Screenplay Hayao Miyazaki
Character design Hayao Miyazaki
Photography Hiromoto Takahashi
Music Joe Hisaishi
Sound design Shigeharu Shiba
Production Co. Studio Ghibli & Tokuma Shoten
Publishing World Sales Buena Vista
LD Source Philip Brophy
Language Japanese - dubbed / LD / 1986 / 124 minutes

LAPUTA has similar heroic themes to NAUSICAA, this time centred on a young boy (Pazu) and girl's (Sheeta) quest to discover their heritage and unleash mystical powers bestowed upon them. More gender-balanced than some of his other work, LAPUTA nonetheless is hinged on Pazu's drive to follow the path set by his lost father, and Sheeta's discovery of a secret internal power she has housed for mysterious reasons. The children weave their way above and beyond the clouds to eventually encounter the mythical Sky Castle (referred to in Jonathan Swift's GULLIVER'S TRAVELS). The visualization of the flight sequences is poetic and memorable; the staging of the action sequences is truly awesome. Miyazaki can evoke creative and destructive forces with an intensity imaginable only in the medium of animation.

Kiki's Delivery Service

Japanese title Majo No Takkyubin
Director Hayao Miyazaki
Producer Toshio Suzuki
Screenplay Hayao Miyazaki (original story)
Character design Katsuo Kondo
Photography Shigeo Sugimura
Music Joe Hisaishi
Sound design Naoko Asanashi
Production Co. Studio Ghibli & Tokuma Shoten Publishing
World Sales Buena Vista
LD Source Philip Brophy
Language Japanese - dubbed / LD / 1989 / 102 minutes

KIKKI'S DELIVERY SERVICE (1989) is an allegorical tale of the joys and sadness of puberty told via a young witch's coming of age. Just the idea alone is intriguing: young witches have to learn about human existence by spending a period with humans and living under their conditions. Its execution in the film is multi-faceted, soulful, and never melodramatic. Miyazaki's penchant for flight and levitation are here symbolically fused with the character of Kiki as she rises above depressing situations and thereby learns as much about her own verve as she does of human foibles. Another Miyazaki trait surfaces in KIKI: fused settings and polyglottic production design. The town she arrives at is a meld of Napoli, Lisbon, Paris, San Francisco and Stockholm. Japanese pop culture consistently privileges the imagined over the authenticated, and KIKI will certainly confound those who seek clear references to where and when the story is set. Of course, the setting is ultimately fantastic - but the characterization of Kiki and the people she meets is grounded, rich and believable. Clearly Miyazaki believes in the totality of Kiki without passing judgement, making KIKI a children's film devoid of the neurotic, moralizing tone that has smothered Anglo children's fiction since the 70s.

Isao Takahata

Tombstone For Fireflies

Japanese title Horaru No Haka
Director Isao Takahata
Producer Hara
Screenplay Isao Takahata (based on Horaru No Haka by Akiyuki Nosaka)
Character design Yoshifumi Kondo
Photography Nobuo Koyama
Music Michio Mamiya
Sound design Yasuo Urakami
Production Co. Studio Ghibli & Shinchosa
Publishing World Sales Toho International
Print Source The Japan Foundation, Tokyo via Toho International, Tokyo Language Japanese - subtitleded / 35mm / 1987 / 88 minutes

Set during the horrendous fire bombings of Japan in the lead-up to the atomic bomb drops, TOMBSTONE FOR FIREFLIES follows two children orphaned in the Kobe attacks - a girl (Setsuko) aged 5 and a boy (Seita) aged 10 - as they try to survive on the streets. The story is told in flashback, opening with the boy's memorable voice over: "September 21st, 1945. That was the night I died." (Be prepared for an ending that still is unthinkable in Western animation.) In TOMBSTONE, Takahata is at his most refined, focusing on the minutia upon which life precariously hangs. Despite its sombre tone, the film is a true celebration of life, using the animated image to poetically dwell upon life essences: the weight of fresh rice, the swirling of hot soup, the spray of fresh water, the final flickering of fireflies. An incisive and considered political rumination slowly materializes beyond the obviousness of the film's historical scenario, as Takahata reveals how a society can be most cruel to its own members when overtaken by the hysteria of war.

Pom Poko

Japanese title Heisei Tanuki Gaseen Pom Poko
Director Isao Takahata
Producer Toshio Suzuki
Screenplay Isao Takahata
Character design Hayao Miyazaki
Photography Atsuki Okut
Music Shang Shang Typhoon
Sound design Takeshi Seyama & Naoko Asanashi
Production Co. Studio Ghibli & Shinchosa
Publishing World Sales Buena Vista
Print Source The Japan Foundation, Tokyo via Toho International, Tokyo
Language Japanese - subtitled / 35mm / 1994 / 118 minutes

Using the rich folklore of the indigenous tanuki (the fat happy 'raccoon dog' that welcomes you outside Japanese restaurants - now an endangered species in Japan), POM POKO maps out a socio-political scenario to question the effectiveness of certain strategies in bringing attention to ecological issues. The message in this film is not simply 'save the forest' but a question as to how one saves the forest. (The answers posed at the film's conclusion provide much food for thought.) The story is densely 'Eastern', making it a film for the adventurous gaijin (foreigner) - not due to the film's innumerable cultural references, but more because of the means by which Takahata characterizes the tanuki. According to their folklore, tanuki are capable of transformative powers and can metamorphose into anything. Throughout POM POKO, they do this while switching between modes of depiction - the three primary graphic states being realistic, comic and iconic. When and where this occurs relates to their state of mind and reactions to a current situation: despite this multiplicity of apparition, character is sharply defined. Individual character is further refined through the story's social dynamics, as numerous debates and conflicts ensue when they try and solve the problem of the encroaching suburban sprawl of Tama New Town. Reflecting Takahata's own conceptual scope, the tangents that shoot forth from POM POKO are many and varied.

Studio Ghibli feature filmography

1984 NAUSICAA OF THE VALLEY OF THE WIND (dr. Miyazaki / pr. Suzuki)
1986 LAPUTA: SKY CASTLE (dr. Miyazaki / pr. Suzuki)
1988 MY NEIGHBOUR TOTORO (dr. Miyazaki / pr. Takahata)
1988 TOMBSTONE FOR FIREFLIES (dr. Takahata / pr. Hara)
1989 KIKI'S DELIVERY SERVICE (dr. Miyazaki / pr. Suzuki)
1991 ONLY YESTERDAY (dr. Takahata / pr. Suzuki)
1992 PORCO ROSSO (dr. Miyazaki / pr. Suzuki)
1994 POM POKO (dr. Takahata / pr. Suzuki)
1995 WHISPER OF THE HEART (dr. Kondo / pr. Suzuki)
1997 THE PRINCESS OF MONONOKE (dr. Miyazaki / pr. Suzuki)

[This programme could not have been mounted without the invaluable aid and assistance given me by Tokuma International (Haruyo Moriyoshi, Steve Alpert); Buena Vista, Australia (John Cracknell, Mark Askew); Be-Wiz (Hiromi Aihara); The Japan Foundation, Tokyo (Tomozo Yano); & Toho International (Shozo Watanabe). Original research for this project was established with KABOOM: Explosive Animation From America & Japan (@ the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 1994) at which time Studio Ghibli allowed me to interview Hayao Miyazaki (thanks to Toshio Suzuki). Checks and up-to-date feeds have also been graciously accepted by Rosemary Dean & Tetsuro Shimauchi, Tokyo, Satoru Higashiseto, Osaka & Bruce Milne, Melbourne. Special thanks to festival director Sandra Sdraulig. Eat Japanese. Buy post-nuclear. Be robot.]

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