Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki

Don’t call it a comeback. Sure, legendary animator Hayao Miyazaki announced his retirement yet again, but everyone hoped he still really didn’t mean it. It turns out we might just get a little bit more from him after all. Kaku Arakawa captures the auteur as he comes to grips with the current state of animation and his mortality in Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York and also has two special nation-wide Fathom Events screenings.

When Arakawa first visits the master in his retirement, he is clearly bored, but leery of starting any new projects, due to his age. Rather regrettably, he has recently attended several funerals for former Ghibli colleagues. The absence of so many past collaborators contributes to his reluctance. Yet, Miyazaki just can’t stop himself.

Before long, he is working on a short for the Ghibli Museum titled Boro the Caterpillar, but the kicker is this time around he is working with a team of CGI animators. Initially, Miyazaki is convinced only computer techniques can replicate the movement of a caterpillar, but he soon falls back only his old working methods. Inevitably, that includes stressing out his long-time (long-suffering) producer, Toshio Suzuki.

Admittedly, there is a lot of puttering in Never-Ending Man, but it eventually evolves into a surprisingly philosophical meditation on the nature of creativity and maybe even the implications of the singularity. A key moment comes when a CGI start-up pitches their technology to Miyazaki using a stunningly poor choice of animation clips. It is an awkward scene in which the master makes it crystal clear how appalled he is by the grotesqueness of it, but to Miyazaki, it becomes an example of something no human animator could stomach if they had to hand illustrate it frame-by-frame. Indeed, sometimes it takes a cranky humanist like Miyazaki to remind us how process and technology shapes an artist’s vision and values.

This happens to be an excellent time to dig deep into Ghibliana. In addition to Arakawa’s documentary, Susan Napier’s Miyazaki World: A Life in Art, a popular scholarly analysis of his oeuvre, just released a few months ago (look for a review this week, hopefully). Not to be spoilery, but it has been widely announced Miyazaki has even more to come, which is happy news. If anyone can be the next Manoel de Oliveira helming films well past his centennial, Miyazaki could. Quiet but smart, Never-Ending is a slyly revealing film that really says more to those interested in the creative process than fans looking for a rose-tinted history of the storied studio. Recommended for cerebral animation connoisseurs, Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyzaki opens this Friday (12/14) at the Metrograph in New York and screens via Fathom Events on Thursday (12/13) and the following Tuesday (12/18).

NYICFF ’18: Horus, Prince of the Sun

He is a young man of destiny, who will reclaim his legacy with the help of a sword that he dislodged from stone. These might sound like familiar fantasy tropes, but the Norse/Slavic flavor and Ainu inspiration would still make it rather distinctive. However, the adventure of Hols takes on enormous historical significance, because it represents the first feature length work of revered animator Hayao Miyazaki and his legendary collaborator Isao Takahata. It is a forerunner to so many beloved Studio Ghibli masterworks, but there is also plenty of ripping good adventure to enjoy in Takahata’s Horus, Prince of the Sun, which celebrates its fiftieth anniversary with screenings during the 2018 New York International Children’s Film Festival.

Hols (or Horus or whatever) is young, but he has a bold spirit that impresses Rockoar, the unfortunately named stone giant (say it to yourself a couple times), especially after the lad manages to pull the legendary Sword of the Sun out of the giant’s shoulder. In fact, the giant prophesies greatness for the boy, but first he must re-forge the sword. He will also have to endure trials and tribulations, starting with the death of his father.

With his dying breathe, the old man urges him to find and rebuild their ancestral village up north that was destroyed by Grunwald, a wintery demonic figure. Recognizing a fantasy hero when he sees one, Grunwald first tries to coopt Hols and then leaves him for dead. He is unsuccessful at both. Soon thereafter, Hols saves a communal fishing village from a number of beastly threats. However, Grunwald will have more success when his siren-voiced little sister infiltrates the village, with Hols’ oblivious help, to insidiously undermine his position.

As a work of cinema analyzed from a strictly formalistic perspective, Horus is a well-paced fantasy, whose primary characters, Hols and Hilda, are quite psychologically sophisticated. There is plenty of action, including the motion-comic effect (panning and scanning over panoramic still tableaux) Takahata effectively uses to render the big battle scenes. Although it is not as visually rich as the work Miyazaki would do at Ghibli, there are still plenty cool images, most definitely including Rockoar.

However, to fully appreciate Horus, imagine seeing it when it was originally released in 1968. As a genre, fantasy was basically Tolkien novels and Hercules movies. Sword of Shannara had not been published yet. The first edition of Dungeons & Dragons had not yet been released. No Wheel of Time, no Game of Thrones, no Stormlight Archive. Nor had anime made much penetration into the western market yet, with the syndication of thin-edges-of-the-wedge Star Blazers and Battle of the Planets years away. It terms of what it was and what it led to, Horus is arguably an under-heralded milestone.

By the way, it is also fun. It zips along, but there are also some real emotional stakes. If you really want to go there, there are even parallels that could be drawn between Hols, Hilda, and Grunwald, with Luke, Leia, and Anakin Skywalker, but to really do it justice requires spoilery analysis of various lines, in various translations. (Nevertheless, it is exactly the sort of film Lucas would have inhaled in his film student days, so who knows?) The important thing is it holds up heroically. Highly recommended for any anime fan, Horus, Prince of the Sun screens again this Saturday (3/10) and Sunday (3/11) as part of the New York International Children’s Film Festival.

Miyazki’s Lupin the 3rd: The Castle of Cagliostro

He is the grandson of a notorious French gentleman thief, but Arsène Lupin III (“The Wolf”) has been a Japanese pop culture icon for years. His own presumably mixed ancestry is always kept a little vague, but his known associate Goemon Ishikawa XIII, thirteenth generation descendant of the Samurai Robin Hood, is as Japanese as it gets. Lupin and his Javier-like nemesis, Inspector Koichi Zenigata (a distant relative of Edo-era detective Zenigata Heiji) had been globe-trotting in manga, anime, and live-action films since 1967, but Hayao Miyazaki got his shot at the franchise in 1979. His first full feature was not a hit during its initial release, but it became a fan favorite soon thereafter. To celebrate Lupin’s 50^th anniversary, Miyazaki’s Lupin the 3rd: The Castle of Caliostro (trailer here) screens two nights as a special presentation of Fathom Events and Eleven Arts.

How frustrating is it for Lupin and his loyal henchman Daisuke Jigen to knock over the National Casino of Monaco, only to find the gambling palace had been duped into taking huge quantities of high quality “goat bill” forgeries? Actually, they rather take it in stride, but Lupin still decides to take down the source of the got bills anyway. Evidently, the tiny European principality of Cagliostro’s nefarious counterfeiting enterprise is an open secret in the underworld.

As fate would have it, Lupin nurses a grudge against the criminal state from his early years as a thief, so it is time for some payback. However, his grudge does not include the rightful heir, Princess Clarisse, who will be forced to marry the usurping regent, Count Cagliostro. Suddenly, their grubby caper becomes a mission of righteousness, so Lupin will call in the taciturn Goemon. Fortunately, his on-again-off-again lover and rival Fujiko Mine already happens to be undercover at the castle. Lupin will even lure Zenigata to the party, to use him as a distraction and perhaps even forge a temporary alliance.

Miyazki and co-screenwriter Haruya Yamazaki present a kinder, gentler Lupin, but they do not skimp on the action. According to urban legend, the film’s car chase sequences had a formative effect on Steven Spielberg. Regardless, the pacing is always pleasingly peppy. This was not a world a Miyazaki’s creating, so it is hardly surprising it lacks the lushness and fantastical elements of his best loved films. However, he still has some rather spiffy visuals. In fact, many of the exterior scenes set around the castle’s perilously high turrets bring to mind Paul Grimault’s finally completed and restored The King and the Mockingbird.

Obviously, Miyazaki had talent if he could portray Lupin as a sentimental softie yet still make his creator, manga artist Monkey Punch relatively okay with the results. You can see flashes of the artistry that would fully flower with the masterworks he produced at Studio Ghibli, but mostly this is just a roller coaster, but with lots of guns (how refreshingly un-PC). Very highly recommended, Lupin the 3^rd: The Castle of Cagliostro screens this Thursday (9/14) dubbed and the following Tuesday (9/19) subtitled at participating theaters nationwide, including the AMC Empire in New York.

DOC NYC ’14: The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness

For millions of animation fans, Studio Ghibli is like Disney without the weird cryogenic baggage. Year after year, Hayao Miyazaki and his team of animators have produced absolute classics that transcend genre. He has now apparently, by-and-large, for the most part, more-or-less retired, but Mami Sunada documented the master at work on his final masterwork, The Wind Rises. Sunada quietly observes the Studio Ghibli comings and goings, but still captures plenty of drama in The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness (trailer here), which screens during this year’s DOC NYC.

Studio Ghibli might only continue as a licensing company, but it ended its original productions on artistic high notes. Both Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises and Isao Takahata’s The Tale of the Princess Kaguya are extraordinarily accomplished capstones to their legendary careers. While Miyazaki’s farewell film was a monster hit at the Japanese box-office, Takahata’s was not. They were also supposed to be released simultaneously, but even at the start of Kingdom, everyone realizes that is highly unlikely to happen.

While there is plenty of pencil-sharpening and studious sketching going on in Kingdom, real conflict emerges between the venerable Miyazaki and the largely unseen Takahata, who gave Miya-san his start in the business decades ago at the Tohei studio. They share an awful lot of history together, but their working methods could not be further apart.

Somehow, as Sunada illustrates in detail, Miyazaki is able to put inspiration on a timetable, which you have to respect, because he made Spirited Away. In contrast, it happens when it happens for Takahata, which you have to respect, because he made Grave of the Fireflies—unless you happen to be Miyazaki. Even though Sunada observes events almost entirely from Miyazaki’s perspective, it is clear their relationship is very complicated. While the film consistently shows how comfortable Miyazaki is in his role as part studio task-master and part twinkly-eyed ambassador of goodwill, whenever Takahata’s delays are mentioned, he sounds like Seinfeld cursing “Newman.” Yet, with his next breath, he is likely to praise his former mentor’s past achievements.

That strange dynamic truly elevates Kingdom above yet another dry process doc, like Farocki’s Sauerbruch Hutton Architects. It also helps that director-editor-cinematographer Sunada is a legit filmmaker with an eye for the telling moment rather than an overawed fan cranking out a DVD extra. As when she chronicled her father’s final days in Death of a Japanese Salesman, she is quite sensitively attuned to the human drama that accompanies any sort of finality.

There are very few animated clips seen throughout Kingdom, which speaks highly of Sunada’s confidence in her subjects. It is justified. Miyazaki is a thoroughly engaging presence, as are longtime producer Ghibli producer-peacemaker Toshio Suzuki and Evangelion animator Hideaki Anno, who gave voice to The Wind Rises’ idealistic protagonist. Sunada documents some true cinema history, ultimately marking the end of an era. A fitting coda to a great career, The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness is recommended for all serious students of animation when it screens this Sunday morning (11/16) at the SVA Theatre, as part of DOC NYC 2014.

Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises: This Year’s Worthiest Oscar Nominee

Jiro Horikoshi is a Studio Ghibli character Tony Stark would approve of.  He was the engineer responsible for designing Imperial Japan’s Model Zero fighters, but he dreamer rather than an ideologue.  At least, that is how Hayao Miyazaki re-imagined Horikoshi’s private persona in his fictionalized manga, which he has now adapted as his reported final film as a director.  Spanning decades of Japan’s tumultuous pre-war history, it is also a deeply personal film that was justly nominated for best animated feature. After brief festival appearances, Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises (trailer here), opens for real this Friday in New York.

As a young student, Horikoshi yearns to fly, but he realizes his spectacles make it nearly impossible for him to become a pilot.  Borrowing an aviation magazine from an encouraging teacher opens up a new path for the earnest lad.  Through its pages he learns of Italian aircraft designer Gianni Caproni, who becomes his inspiration.  Setting his sights on an engineering career, Horikoshi regularly meets Caproni in his dreams and reveries, where they share their mutual passion for flight.

Circumstances of history will conspire to make Horikoshi’s life eventful.  His first day as a university student is marked by the catastrophic earthquake of 1923, which will resonate profoundly with contemporary viewers mindful of Fukushima.  Yet, out of that tragedy, Hirokoshi meets and temporarily loses the great love of his life.

Despite his intelligence, Japan’s stagnant economy offers few opportunities for Horikoshi when he graduates.  He joins Mitsubishi at a time when the company appears to be on its last legs. Gambling its future on military contracts, the company sends Horikoshi to Germany, hoping he can help them reverse-engineer whatever the Junkers will let them see.  Of course, he will be able to raise the company’s game substantially.

In no way, shape, or manner does Miyazaki justify Japan’s militarist era, but he has still taken flak from both sides of the divide over Wind.  Frankly, it presents a gentle but firm critique of the Imperial war machine.  At one point, Horikoshi is even forced into hiding, designing the military’s fighter planes while he evades the government’s thought police.  Indeed, such is a common experience for the best and the brightest living under oppressive regimes.  Yet, Miyazaki is just as interested in Horikoshi’s grandly tragic romance with Naoko, a beautiful artist sadly suffering from tuberculosis.  Horikoshi makes a number of difficult choices throughout the film, every one of which the audience can well understand.

Given its elegiac vibe, Wind makes a fitting summation film for Miyazaki.  Covering the immediate pre-war decades, it compliments and engages in a wistful dialogue with Gorō Miyazaki’s charming post-war coming of age tale From Up on Poppy Hill (co-written by the elder Miyazaki).  One can also see and hear echoes of master filmmakers past, such as Ozu and Fellini, throughout the film.  Any cinema scholar surveying Miyazaki’s work will have to deal with it at length, but it still happens to be a genuinely touching film.

After watching Wind, viewers will hope the real Horikoshi was a lot like Miyazaki’s (and the same goes for Caproni). Miyazaki seriously examines the dilemmas faced by his protagonist while telling a lyrical love story.  Visually, the quality of Studio Ghibli’s animation remains undiminished, but the clean lines of Horikoshi’s planes and the blue open skies lend themselves to simpler images than some of his richly detailed classics.  Regardless, The Wind Rises is an unusually accomplished film that transcends the animation genre.  Highly recommended for all ages and interests, it opens this Friday (2/21) in New York at the Landmark Sunshine, in dubbed and the infinitely preferable subtitled versions.

NYFF ’13: The Wind Rises

Jiro Horikoshi is a Studio Ghibli character Tony Stark would approve of.  He was the engineer responsible for designing Imperial Japan’s Model Zero fighters, but he dreamer rather than an ideologue.  At least, that is how Hayao Miyazaki re-imagined Horikoshi’s private persona in his fictionalized manga, which he has now adapted as his final film as a director.  Spanning decades of Japan’s tumultuous pre-war history, Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises (trailer here) is also a deeply personal film that screens as a main slate selection of the 51st New York Film Festival.

As a young student, Horikoshi yearns to fly, but he realizes his spectacles make it nearly impossible for him to become a pilot.  Borrowing an aviation magazine from an encouraging teacher opens up a new path for the earnest lad.  Through its pages he learns of Italian aircraft designer Gianni Caproni, who becomes his inspiration.  Setting his sights on an engineering career, Horikoshi regularly meets Caproni in his dreams and reveries, where they share their mutual passion for flight.

Circumstances of history will conspire to make Horikoshi’s life eventful.  His first day as a university student is marked by the catastrophic earthquake of 1923, which will resonate profoundly with contemporary viewers.  Yet, out of that tragedy, Hirokoshi meets and temporarily loses the great love of his life.

Despite his intelligence, Japan’s stagnant economy offers few opportunities for Horikoshi when he graduates.  He joins Mitsubishi at a time when the company appears to be on its last legs. Gambling its future on military contracts, the company sends Horikoshi to Germany, hoping he can help them reverse-engineer whatever the Junkers will let them see.  Of course, he will be able to raise their game substantially.

In no way, shape, or manner does Miyazaki justify Japan’s militarist era, but he has still taken flak from both sides of the divide over Wind.  Frankly, it presents a gentle but firm critique of the Imperial war machine.  At one point, Horikoshi is even forced into hiding, designing the military’s fighter planes while he evades the government’s thought police.  Indeed, such is a common experience for the best and the brightest living under oppressive regimes.  Yet, Miyazaki is just as interested in Horikoshi’s grandly tragic romance with Naoko, a beautiful artist sadly suffering from tuberculosis.  Horikoshi makes a number of choices throughout the film, every one of which the audience can well understand.

Given its elegiac vibe, Wind makes a fitting summation film for Miyazaki.  Covering the immediate pre-war decades, it compliments and engages in a wistful dialogue with Gorō Miyazaki’s post-war coming of age tale From Up on Poppy Hill (co-written by the elder Miyazaki).  One can also see and hear echoes of master filmmakers past, such as Ozu ad Fellini, throughout the film.  Any cinema scholar surveying Miyazaki’s work will have to deal with it at length, but it still happens to be a genuinely touching film.

After watching Wind, viewers will hope the real Horikoshi was a lot like Miyazaki’s (and the same goes for Caproni). Miyazaki seriously examines the dilemmas faced by his protagonist while telling a lyrical love story.  Visually, the quality of Studio Ghibli’s animation remains undiminished, but the clean lines of Horikoshi’s planes and the blue open skies lend themselves to simpler images than some of his richly detailed classics.  Regardless, The Wind Rises is an unusually accomplished film that transcends the animation genre.  Highly recommended for all ages and interests, it screens this Saturday (9/28) and next Friday (10/4) at Alice Tully Hall (stand-by only), as part of the 2013 NYFF.

NYICFF ’13: From Up On Poppy Hill

Hosting the 1964 Tokyo Olympics completed Japan’s post-war rebirth.  It would announce the arrival of a new democratic capitalist country on the world stage.  However, as Japan prepares for the games in 1963, two high school students will come to terms with their past in Gorō Miyazaki’s From Up On Poppy Hill (trailer here), the latest animated feature from Studio Ghibli (co-adapted from a manga favorite by the director’s legendary animator father Hayao), which screens as part of the 2013 NewYork International Children’s Festival, in advance of its Friday opening at the IFC Center.

Umi Matsuzaki is the perfect daughter, who studies diligently when she is not cooking and doing chores for her family’s boarding house guests.  Unfortunately, her parents are not present to witness her hard work.  Her mother is studying in an American graduate program and her father was lost at sea—or at least so she was told.  Nevertheless, every morning she raises signal flags in hopes of guiding her sailor father home again.  Her grandmother, siblings, and boarders appreciate all her hard work, but there is still a void in her life.

Suddenly, boys come into her life.  Through an odd chain of events, the bemused Matsuzaki falls in with the rabble-rousing leaders of the Latin Quarter, a dilapidated fraternity house for her school’s male-dominated academic clubs.  As the editor of the Latin Quarter’s newspaper, Shun Kazama has published his poems inspired by Matsuzaki’s flag-raising.  Although the administration has decided to demolish their old building, the practical Matsuzaki becomes instrumental in their campaign to save the Latin Quarter.  In the process, she and Kazama fall deeply in manga-anime style love.  Unfortunately, Kazama discovers a secret link from their family histories that apparently changes everything.

At least the first third of Poppy is solely devoted to establishing Matsuzaki’s small corner of Yokohama and her various relationships with family, boarders, and fellow students.  One could say not much happens, yet it is quite pleasant, in large measure due to the great likability of the virtuous but down-to-earth heroine.  When Matsuzaki begins her sweetly awkward relationship with Kazama, while counseling his arrogant but well meaning friends, Poppy takes on the vibe of an upscale anime Archie comic.  However, the past will continue to intrude on their reluctant melodrama.

Visually, Poppy is quite attractive, but its backgrounds and cityscapes are not nearly as lush as Ghibli’s two previous American releases, The Secret World of Arrietty and Tales from Earthsea.  Still, it presents an appealing protagonist for younger girls, especially those who might feel self conscious about being studious or sensitive.  Indeed, the fillm’s tone and characters are all quite endearing, propelled along quite nicely by Satoshi Takebe’s lightly swinging themes.

Reportedly, production on Poppy was interrupted but not derailed by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, which adds a layer of significance to its story of perseverance and preservation.  Comparatively small in scope and firmly rooted in reality, Poppy is like the Ghibli version of an Ozu film.  Recommended for pre-teens and up who appreciate character driven animation, From Up On Poppy Hill opens this Friday (3/15) in New York, downtown at the IFC Center and uptown at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center (with the Friday and Sunday screenings to be held in the Walter Reade instead).