backlogged film comments
Aug. 25th, 2010 03:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
acchikocchiApparently this is Posting Week.
I have a folder full of gig reports and travel write-ups and photo posts at anything from 10% - 98% complete... :| Most of this was written a couple months ago, after watching three previously unseen Ghibli films in one weekend. (Looking back I never seem to post about films here. Huh.) No real spoilers.
Umi ga kikoeru (Ocean Waves): I swear to god, if I hadn't read a plot synopsis ahead of time I would have thought the set-up was for a BL film. I half did anyway. XD;;; And to be honest, I probably would have liked that one more. It's not bad, but it's not... I mean, it was a film for the newbies at Ghibli to stretch their wings with. It lacks the emotional depth and nuance of the next two movies, which is all the more noticeable if you watch them more or less in a row. Er. In summary, Rikako is no Taeko or Shizuku or Chihiro or San.
Though between this and Omohide poro poro I felt like I was taking a Rural Japan Through Film tour. Kochi, Yamagata...
Mimi wo sumaseba (Whispers of the Heart): It's immediately obvious why this is so many people's favorite. I wish I'd seen it at fourteen. I wish every girl in Japan could see it at fourteen. What a message. I remember that Miyazaki said he created Spirited Away to give 10-year-old girls something more than flimsy, sickly-sweet shoujo manga - this is for those same girls on the threshold of high school. This is about those girls. It certainly struck a very deep chord with my experiences, as I think it would for an awful lots of LJ fen. (The climactic scene - and I don't mean when Seiji returns - will be, or should be, immediately familiar to anyone who's attempted writing fiction herself.) And while the narrative - adolescent girl discovering a passion for writing - is far from uncommon over here, it seems so much less so in Japan. And Shizuku gets it all: self-actualization and the boy, who thinks she and her ambition are amazing. Compare that to yr average Ribon manga and boggle.
(I haven't even mentioned the sense of atmosphere. Which is par for the course for Ghibli, obviously, but all the more appreciable because it's a lot easier to provide in the Japanese countryside than it is in an average Tokyo suburb.)
Anyway. It's an incredible gem. Like I said, I wish I'd seen it growing up. But I'm a lot closer to Taeko's age than Shizuku's now, and so --
Omohide poro poro (Only Yesterday): This is the one that really hit hard. I have no qualms admitting I was a complete mess through the final scene. The thing is, the real emotional/narrative arc blindsided me - for most of the film I never even saw it coming. Pardon my completely unsophisticated analysis but it's amazing how, basically, two scenes bring cohesion to the entire piece, particularly because (as I read much to my surprise) the present-day storyline was essentially invented as a framing device for the episodes described in the source manga. It would be an enjoyable little movie otherwise, but suddenly it has an awful lot of power to people of a certain demographic, namely mine. Like Taeko, my younger self is frequently at my heels and I don't know if that's a good thing or not.
I have a folder full of gig reports and travel write-ups and photo posts at anything from 10% - 98% complete... :| Most of this was written a couple months ago, after watching three previously unseen Ghibli films in one weekend. (Looking back I never seem to post about films here. Huh.) No real spoilers.
Umi ga kikoeru (Ocean Waves): I swear to god, if I hadn't read a plot synopsis ahead of time I would have thought the set-up was for a BL film. I half did anyway. XD;;; And to be honest, I probably would have liked that one more. It's not bad, but it's not... I mean, it was a film for the newbies at Ghibli to stretch their wings with. It lacks the emotional depth and nuance of the next two movies, which is all the more noticeable if you watch them more or less in a row. Er. In summary, Rikako is no Taeko or Shizuku or Chihiro or San.
Though between this and Omohide poro poro I felt like I was taking a Rural Japan Through Film tour. Kochi, Yamagata...
Mimi wo sumaseba (Whispers of the Heart): It's immediately obvious why this is so many people's favorite. I wish I'd seen it at fourteen. I wish every girl in Japan could see it at fourteen. What a message. I remember that Miyazaki said he created Spirited Away to give 10-year-old girls something more than flimsy, sickly-sweet shoujo manga - this is for those same girls on the threshold of high school. This is about those girls. It certainly struck a very deep chord with my experiences, as I think it would for an awful lots of LJ fen. (The climactic scene - and I don't mean when Seiji returns - will be, or should be, immediately familiar to anyone who's attempted writing fiction herself.) And while the narrative - adolescent girl discovering a passion for writing - is far from uncommon over here, it seems so much less so in Japan. And Shizuku gets it all: self-actualization and the boy, who thinks she and her ambition are amazing. Compare that to yr average Ribon manga and boggle.
(I haven't even mentioned the sense of atmosphere. Which is par for the course for Ghibli, obviously, but all the more appreciable because it's a lot easier to provide in the Japanese countryside than it is in an average Tokyo suburb.)
Anyway. It's an incredible gem. Like I said, I wish I'd seen it growing up. But I'm a lot closer to Taeko's age than Shizuku's now, and so --
Omohide poro poro (Only Yesterday): This is the one that really hit hard. I have no qualms admitting I was a complete mess through the final scene. The thing is, the real emotional/narrative arc blindsided me - for most of the film I never even saw it coming. Pardon my completely unsophisticated analysis but it's amazing how, basically, two scenes bring cohesion to the entire piece, particularly because (as I read much to my surprise) the present-day storyline was essentially invented as a framing device for the episodes described in the source manga. It would be an enjoyable little movie otherwise, but suddenly it has an awful lot of power to people of a certain demographic, namely mine. Like Taeko, my younger self is frequently at my heels and I don't know if that's a good thing or not.
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Date: 2010-08-26 05:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-26 07:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-26 09:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-26 08:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-27 07:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-26 02:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-27 07:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-26 03:36 pm (UTC)self-actualization and the boy, who thinks she and her ambition are amazing
Ikr, and why is this so hard for other moviemakers/authors/etc. of the world to grok? I mean, I have never seen another film get this narrative righter, and maybe not read a book either. Dear everyone who has ever wondered "what do women want," or rather "what do adolescent girls want": this is what we want. Self-actualization and the boy. Girl.
Dragon. Whatever. Who thinks we and our ambition are awesome. I wish every girl everywhere could see this film, because I'm not sure media outside Japan, especially movies, have done much better on behalf of the 14-year-old set.(I guess The Princess and the Frog is getting at the same message, finally, more or less, for a younger audience--but I still look at Disney and think "ur doin it rong"; a Disney film feels like a commodity, not a story.)
Mimi wo is based on a Ribon manga, though (which perhaps you knew)! Wheat among the chaff.
Anyway to give this comment some redeeming value I recommend this fic: http://archiveofourown.org/works/32569
no subject
Date: 2010-08-27 08:17 am (UTC)Or because all the lists were made by fanboys.I'm not sure media outside Japan, especially movies, have done much better on behalf of the 14-year-old set
No, you're undoubtedly right - I was thinking of the probably unfair comparison between shoujo manga and the throngs of Western children's/YA books covering similar ground to Mimi wo. (Though mostly with less charm. And less, well. MAGICALLY.) For all I know there's plenty of relevant examples in Japanese YA lit? Anyway, trying to come up with a Wmedia example of Doing It Right off the top of my head produces only Mulan, which certainly has its flaws but was still pretty darn satisfying in junior high. Not that 12- to 14-year-old girls in their own right are a Hollywood target demographic, anyway.
Fic rec = pure glowing satisfaction. ♥_♥
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Date: 2010-08-26 07:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-27 07:48 am (UTC)