As with Pom Poko,
I fell in love with this movie immediately. It is a story about two
sisters who move with their father into a new house. Their mother is in
the hospital for reasons unknown, and this clearly is the issue of the film. The movie is about the imagination and how it helps children to cope with the sometimes harsh realities of life.
At first, they think the house is haunted -- and it is, by soot gremlins. And acorns mysteriously appear throughout the house. Their father indulges them in this -- he's an archeology professor, who, while he dotes on his children, must also leave them alone sometimes because of his work.
One afternoon, the 4-year-old Mei wanders off and discovers a hidden grove occupied by the sleeping Totoro. She tells her father and sister Satsuki about the discovery -- and at first, they don't believe her. Later while Satsuki waits in the rain with her sister at the bus stop, she sees for herself Totoro. Both girls then see the Cat Bus appear and whisk Totoro away again.
My favorite character is Mei. She is pure child. She echoes and imitates her older sister, and she wants to be involved in everything going on! (I believe she is meant to be our favorite.) An aspect I love about this film is that this is an identifiably Japanese family and setting, yet is still emotionally intelligible to a Western audience -- because they feel like they could be any family. Their story is rather ordinary, but still very poignant. (As I said, I can relate to this film because reminds me of similar circumstances in my life growing up.) The animation is identifiably as the Studio Ghibli house style, but there is a Seussian aspect to its depiction of Totoro and friends.
Clearly in this movie, the creatures depicted are to be taken as imaginary in nature. But Totoro, the soot gremlins, and the Cat Bus are real to Satsuki and Mei -- and that's what really matters. The film helps us to see how they are necessary and healthy for the children to believe in. It indulges us and them in the imaginary world, granting it an authenticity and emotional depth that is very satisfying.
Highly recommended.
This film was more like what I expected anime to be like. By this, I mean there were stylistic elements that I took to be more typical of traditional anime. In particular, I'm thinking of how Howl himself was drawn compared to other characters in the film.
It shares the same dream-like, fairy-tale logic as in Spirited Away. I liked the parable of Sophie, how she was transformed from a plain nineteen-year-old girl to a wise ninety-year-old woman. The movie begins by introducing the wizard Howl and his moving castle (which no one seems to think particularly remarkable). Early on, he meets Sophie and rescues her from some blobby monsters by taking flight with her.
The setting is a fantasy European-ish country, with a steampunk feel. Sophie runs the family hat shop. She sees herself as the Plain Jane of her family. One evening the fat Witch of the Waste enters the store and curses her to be transformed into an old woman. Sophie leaves her family and ventures out to find Howl's Moving Castle. There she meets the scarecrow Turnip-Head, the hearth fire-demon Calcifer, and the little-boy apprentice Markl. Inside the castle is a magic door that opens out on to other vistas based on a color-wheel dial beside it.
What happens in the film is that Sophie learns how to be compassionate, to love, and to create her own sense of family. There are some interesting surprises and twists that accomplish this. (And I won't spoil it by revealing them.) An interesting film, well-worth watching. Enjoy!
Based on the previews, this was a film I was looking forward to seeing it.
The movie is about an Italian pilot who has been transformed by a curse into a pig-like humanoid. It is set in the Adriatic Sea between the World Wars. He hires himself out as a flying bounty hunter to fight against the seaplane pirates who menace the islands thereabout. He and the American pilot Curtis fight for the affections of the fair Gina, chanteuse and owner of the local nightclub.
I was somewhat disappointed by the film. As usual from Studio Ghibli, the film was splendidly animated. But again, I felt the story was rather thin. There really wasn't much meaningful conflict in it, I thought. (Fascist Italy lingered as a menace in the background, but never really materialized as a threat. Which left us solely with the seaplane pirates as comic villains.)
Many of these films I plan on re-watching later to see if I appreciate them more on second watching. My hope is this one is one that I do end up liking more.
This was a "meh" movie for me. At least on first watching. I might like it more on subsequent viewings. It's about a thirteen-year-old witch, Kiki, who must leave her home and live in another city by herself. Her only real talent is flight, so she establishes her own delivery service. She begins the movie as an ingenue lost in a big city and ends it belonging to her new surroundings and somewhat wiser.
The setting is European, but not identified with any particular nationality. The animation is beautifully done. (One of the themes in the movie is rural vs. urban.) There is certainly more to the plot than in Spirited Away, but there is less at stake. Spirited Away feels more thematically significant to me.
Spirited Away is a charming movie and an opportune choice for my first anime in the series. At its heart, it is a coming-of-age fairy tale.
Ten-year-old Chihiro and her family are moving to a new town. They become lost and come across what appears to be an abandoned theme park. But it is not really empty, but rather is the boundary between material and spirit realms. Her parents become trapped by gluttony and transformed into pigs.
At this point, Chihiro must navigate the fairy-tale logic of this spirit realm and rescue her parents. She is befriended by a young boy Haku (whose alternate form is that of a dragon) who instructs her that the realm is ruled by the witch-hag Yubaba from her magical bath house.
To succeed in her quest, she must indenture herself and yield her name to Yubaba. In the bath house, she befriends a number of spirits -- some of them rather mysterious -- and she unravels the secrets of this spirit realm, thereby freeing her parents and returning with them to the material world.
Like any fairy tale, the actual plot is bare. But the world is extravagantly imagined and so animated. But the logic it follows is that of the dream. The plot is associative, rather than strictly logical. One element leads to another, leads to another, not so much by causal necessity, but more so by stream-of-consciousness.
To my surprise, I found this movie to be, well, charming. I accepted its dream logic, rather than fighting it. And I thought it was beautifully conceived and animated. Did I want more plot? Yeah. But ultimately not to the detriment of the film and my enjoyment of it.
(It won the 2001 Academy Award for Best Animated Film.)
