acchikocchi (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
acchikocchi) wrote2010-08-25 03:59 pm
acchikocchi) wrote2010-08-25 03:59 pm
backlogged film comments
Apparently 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.