Favourite Miyazaki film

might fuck around and rewatch PONYO (2008)

actually i already started, love how utterly fkn wired and exhausted her dad looks from the get-go

he's all jacked up on that elixir.

also how recklessly sosuke's mum drives, she reminds me of mine getting me to school in like 1969 lol

Rewatched Ponyo with daughters yesterday - it's #2 daughter's fave now - and was struck again by the sheer loveliness of their little boat put-putting over the flooded motorways as the Cambrian fishies ("IT'S DEVONICUS!") loom beneath them.

semi-convinced that there's a thread in ponyo -- part visual part story-content -- that goes back to a rupert the bear story i dragged my old rupert annuals off their high shelf and finally checked, and tbh (a) no, the two elements i thought were in one single story are in two quite unrelated stories (rupert at greyrocks cove in 1961, rupert and the whistlefish in 1969, if yr keeping count) so i think my grand theory fails BUT someone at ghibli nevetheless reads rupert the bear books imo

j forgot what b was, i think it's somewhere in what i wrote

Halfway through Pom Poko, <3 <3 <3 (those are hearts not racoon balls.) Wasn't expecting a rendition of the best non M.R. James ghost story Mujina, turns out Mujina is another word for raccoon (raccoon dog, techinally).

We watched Pom poko last week and it manages to balance the watership down sadness, with being absolutely hilarious.

I should read more tanuki mythology.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-tanuki-japan-s-trickster-god

There’s some great tanuki testicle tricks ukioe prints in that article.

yeah, either the sombre narration (though not untempered with dry humour) or the WBesque raccoons would be too much by themselves. was trying to place the narrator but i had to look it up in the end: "what are the raccoons going to do tonight? the same thing they do every night pinky: try to take over the world!"

i saw princess raccoon at the ica a while back, with several fellow ex-ilxors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Raccoon

the story i remember little of, the sense of ramshackle panto-level mise-en-scene lingers more strongly

not Miyasaki, not even Ghibli, but Studio Ponoc's Mary and the Witch's Flower

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_and_the_Witch%27s_Flower

is on film4 currently. so i guess it'll start on film4+1 in ~40 minutes.

not seen it but it is well regarded.

(which is based on another english children's book)

This is on Netflix in the US, pretty good movie.

Whisper of the heart: did not finish.

Then you missed her awesome story she wrote

i skipped through and found an intro and another scene but hardly a story - is there stuff that's narrated but not shown?

apologies for my disrespectful treatment of ghibli/miyazaki.

it's kondō (rip)!

i saw that on the big screen a month or so before the theaters all closed, and found it very soothing and charming and absorbing and unique (?). nice chill slice of life, the coming-of-age of a creative person but without any forced crises or overblown obstacles. the family doesn't always get her but they're supportive, the biggest problem is a snafu with a friend whose crush likes the wrong person, etc. i was also very ready for it to be done when it was done, and didn't much love the ending, but idk it put me in a very nice mood. prob not for everyone tho, and def doesn't scratch the same itches as miyazaki.

continued apologies for disrespectful treatment of kondō (though miyazaki did write the screenplay).

I was looking forward to The Wind Rises (spoilers follow), I wasn't aware of any controversy and vaguely thought it was universally acclaimed. The opening was charming, all the dream sequences delightful, the sound design outstanding. But I had misgivings early on; in the earthquake and fire he saves the woman because he's a Good Guy but he's materially and emotionally unaffected by the devastation - the library's on fire as he arrives at the university but he laughs it off, books are replaceable after all. I kept on waiting for some moral payback from his war work but it never came, aside from a platitude about the pyramids and the aeroplane graveyard at the end. His colleague and friend recognises the poverty caused by the government's economic policy but happily accepts their paycheck and ultimately dismisses the idea that they are in the arms trade. And then there's Jiro calmly working long hours away from home and late into the night at home on his machines of death as his wife basically lies dying beside him. I found Miyazaki's choices here disappointing, considering the strong sense of humanity and anti-war themes in the rest of his filmography.

When Marnie was There: emo girl gets pally with ghost. 'Emo girl' is reductive and unfair but she's a cartoon so that's ok. I stuck with this but it never transcended its obvious young adult themes, though the ending was pretty moving.

The Tale of Princess Kaguya. Loved the drawing style except for the caricatured characters - the giant headed mum, the pointy headed tutor, the pointy chinned emperor - which I hated. Good story.

only watched the beginning, but a 30 min bts/doc about Kiki's location/inspiration in Stockholm & Visby.

https://vimeo.com/386087768

This now-cafe was the inspiration for Gütiokipänjä Bakery.

https://goo.gl/maps/8rgAjWcBcMjeG1hk6

HM's comments: https://vimeo.com/45200524

For USA people: HBOMax is offering a free 7-day trial and they have the complete Ghibli collection.

(even graveyard? that was missing from the netflix uk list iirc)

Apparently not fireflies yet

It's on Hulu if that makes any difference...

it probably does to HBO, which explains what's going on there.

https://www.polygon.com/animation-cartoons/2020/5/31/21270449/hayao-miyazaki-lost-movie-rowlf-richard-corben-studio-ghibli
had NO idea about this. cannot imagine a corben/miyazaki team up, what a culture clash

That's cool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuNkFTGtysw
miyazaki's first solo directed piece
http://ghiblicon.blogspot.com/2006/10/yukis-sun-miyazakis-solo-directoral.html

Rewatched Ponyo last night.

Discounting Totoro, Miyazaki is at his best when his stories are fully immersed in the fantasy realm: the dream-logic world of Spirited Away; the surreal steam-punk universe of Howl's Moving Castle. While the plot of (especially) the latter film can feel convoluted or awkwardly paced at times, it benefits from the caveat of its fantastical backdrop. Ponyo, being set in the real world and relying on magic-realism, feels slight and unfinished by comparison.

The film received a lot of praise for its clean, simple style, but as with Calcifer in HMC, the Ponyo character feels rough and sketchily-drawn. And while there are some beautiful moments of animation, it's nothing we haven't already seen in Miyazaki's previous films. The shots linger on these moments a little too long. I hate to say it, but it's the only film of his which acts pleased with itself.

Similar to the scrappy art, the plot left me feeling similarly unsatisfied, with character motivations running all over the place and loose threads left dangling. Sosuke's mother come across stressed, overworked and frustrated by her husband's absence. She makes irrational and frankly dangerous decisions throughout the film, recklessly driving home through a tsunami against official warnings to turn back, and once home deciding to leave her four-year old son so she can go back to her fully-staffed workplace. Despite all this, she takes Ponyo's arrival and adoption completely in her stride, as though having another kid to look after isn't the last thing she needs.

Ponyo's father, the king of the ocean, is also frustrating. A complicated character, whose history is only faintly alluded to, his grave concerns about the cataclysmic end of the world are brushed away by almost everyone. Never mind that there are ancient dinosaurs swimming down the street and the moon is lifting the sea into the sky, people seem more concerned about the 'true love' a little boy has for a human-headed fish. Meanwhile it's all gentle row-boat picnics and sanguine seniors sipping tea. Any environmental concerns seem to boil down to an insipid 'Relax, and stop taking everything so seriously - true love conquers all'.

Perhaps I'm not the right audience for Ponyo. Like Totoro, it's clearly aimed at young children and I've heard lots of accounts of kids being mesmerised by it. Totoro is also a very sweet and charming film, but it will never be my favourite, or at least not unless I get to see it with children of that age. Until then, Spirited Away and HMC will be Miyazaki's crowning achievements.

Also, the soundtrack is nowhere near as memorable or evocative as some of his other films. I found it irritating in places

in which ilxor dog latin doesn't get it

i know you have a soft spot for this one, but if there's something more to get, it's shot past me. Still, even bad Miyazaki is good. I don't dislike the film so much as I think it's all a bit loose and unfinished-feeling compared to others.

me indulging my soft spot

ponyo (the only good film) is now on netflix

― mark s, Friday, 3 April 2020 20:05 (three months ago) bookmarkflaglink

obviously i am watching it, i will always watch it

― mark s, Friday, 3 April 2020 20:06 (three months ago) bookmarkflaglink

i like ponyo a lot. it does work better as a young kids movie than a lot of the other ghibli movies, and i like that there isn't really a "bad guy" in the end, just an overprotective father.

I really want to start showing these to my son, but holding out until we can get HBO Max on our Roku to watch on our main TV instead of the laptop. Feel like these deserve a bigger viewing experience for his first time.

I've got to admit I sometimes share DL's nagging irritation at obtuse character motivations and dangling plot threads in Ghibli films, but thankfully I'm usually able to take a mental step back and experience them in a more impressionistic way.

they almost all have some sort of rushed ending or a pacing issue, but I came to really appreciate HMC despite its deus ex ending

JVC – No HBO Max on Roku is such a pain in the ass. I tried to sideload a screen mirroring app and accidentally rooted my whole Roku.

I think Miyazaki is an amazing storyteller, but he's got a very different interest and understanding in narrative structure than most filmmakers. He tells these cool, closely-observed stories that're paced on minute observation, subtle emotional currents, tiny details and then ... I think he realizes he's got to close the story, so he kind of slaps-together an ending that fulfills the basic criteria of closure, even if the story wasn't building toward it. Since he often bases his work on stories by European writers, I think that he kinda just goes 'oh, how'd that end in the book? What provided closure? Let's try that.'

Howl's Moving Castle was a fantasy tone poem, all full of mystery and weirdness... until the very end. And then, suddenly, there was a story about a missing prince the closes everything? And it was a scarecrow? There was a war? I can't even remember. The ending of Ponyo felt similarly unanticipated... A couple of the reviews said something along the lines of 'it follows a childlike logic....' which is a nice way of saying 'the end doesn't exactly answer the question of the beginning.' In Miyazaki's most successful films (Totoro, Kiki, Spirited Away, maybe even The Wind Rises) the stories themselves are so dreamy and meandering that a non-traditional ending doesn't draw attention to itself. YMMV.

dog latin –– deus ex is an interesting way of framing the ending! I'e always thought of the endings as more like more non-sequiturs. it strikes me that if Miyazaki's process was to watch a finished film and go back and add a scene here or there, he could 'fix' the ending with a couple of quick plants in the first act. but ... he doesn't seem to think/work that way?

the uneventfulness of kiki and totoro make their narratives feel vingette-y, and that rhythm attaches strangely to the more eventful movies. i love literally everything about princess mononoke but i could understand someone having issues with the pacing of it especially the ending

ponyo is just a fuckin psychedelic color blast tho

watching PONYO (2008)

Argh, am I going to have to throw it on too?

true love conquers all, the only logical ending

the uneventfulness of ... totoro

have you seen the 3rd act?