mahlersoboes Reviews

Grave of the Fireflies (1988)

"Hard to recover from, impossible to forget"

[10/10 · 25 September 2005]

This is one of those reviews where I will say at the outset that, if you haven't yet seen the film, you should go see it. As soon as (or even before, if you're the impatient type) you read this review, I urge you to run out and buy or rent it.

Because my words simply cannot convey what Isao Takahata's animated masterpiece Hotaru no haka conveys.

Known in the English-speaking world as Grave of the Fireflies or, in some countries, Tombstone for Fireflies, Hotaru no haka is the single most powerful anti-war film I have ever seen. As a work of art, it ranks among Picasso's Guernica and Elgar's cello concerto. It succeeds where many American films—like Fahrenheit 9/11, Apocalypse Now, and even Schindler's List—simply don't. Hotaru no haka is a grim depiction of innocence lost, not just of its two young protagonists, but of the entire Japanese nation.

The story centers around two children: Seita, who is about thirteen; and his younger sister Setsuko, who is four. Their mother dies of wounds when their town is attacked during the firebombing of Japan in World War II, and they go to live with an aunt. While kind at first, she grows to resent the two siblings she must now feed and shelter—why can't Seita "work for the war effort," as his cousin and uncle are doing? Seita and Setsuko eventually set out on their own to live in an abandoned shelter. But food is hard to come by, and they gradually succumb to malnutrition.

Yes, they die. That is obvious from the film's exposition, which shows Seita sitting ragged and obviously malnourished in a train station, a mysterious tin on his person. A janitor throws the tin into the night, where fireflies encircle it and the spirit of Setsuko emerges. She joins her brother's ghost, they board a train to the next world, and the story is told in flashback. "September 21, 1945... that was the night I died" is the opening line.

The interesting thing about this film is that, although it is Japanese, it neither victimizes the Japanese nor demonizes the Americans. In fact, its deepest disdain is reserved perhaps for the Japanese people themselves, who turn a cold shoulder to the suffering of their children and fellow citizens. Takahata shows us that the true casualty of war is not life, but innocence.

The animation, while in the stylized animé tradition, is rooted in realism and rich detail; and, while it strikingly depicts the tragic demise of the characters, it also has many moments of beauty. There is much to be admired visually in this film—hardly surprising, since it comes from Japan's legendary Studio Ghibli, which has produced the most breathtaking traditional animation that I have ever had the privilege to see.

All these elements—story, symbolism, animation—combine to make one big emotional punch in the gut that is hard to recover from and impossible to forget. It's an animated film, sure; but it is one of the most bitingly real films you'll ever see, and the simple fact that it is not live-action doesn't diminish its power. If you have a night to ruin, watch Hotaru no haka. It's a film that you don't want to see, but one that you will never regret having seen.

My inevitable "dub vs. sub" commentary: The DVD contains two versions of the film: one is a dubbed English version, and the other is the original Japanese with English subtitles. I urge you to do yourself a favor, and watch the Japanese version. I see no point in watching the dub, since you won't be showing Hotaru no haka to younger children anyways....right?

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

The trilogy fizzles out....

[2/10 · 7 September 2005]

Peter Jackson set himself up really well as a director when The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was released. He had created a fast-paced and exciting yet beautiful and poetic thriller that utilized old cinematic tricks in fantastic new ways and, despite its three-hour running time, left me breathless. I had pretty high hopes for the rest of the trilogy.

But alas! Jackson did not deliver. The Two Towers was, in a word, boring: it lacked the great screenplay and the emotional depth that Fellowship conveyed so wonderfully.

And then came The Return of the King, which won twelve Oscars as well as critical acclaim.

The three and a half hours that I spent in the theatre enduring that schlock are three and a half hours of my life that, very regretfully, I will never, ever have back.

Why did this film fail almost completely in my eyes? Well, perhaps it's because Jackson spread himself too thin in the second movie: while the Frodo-Fellowship dual storyline worked fairly well (I won't say particularly well, but it worked) in Tolkein's books, in the cinema it has the unfortunate effect of making the story seem choppy, and the flow of the story is lost.

Another unfortunate by-product of the dual storyline is that the divergent elements must come back together. How did Jackson accomplish this in Return of the King? By making the story's dénouement last over 30 excruciatingly long minutes. Jackson chose the tear-jerking happy/sad path for the ending, which wears its heart on its sleeve and reeks, to me, of a sort of Hollywood melodrama raised to the nth degree. While the dialogue in Fellowship had a poetic charm to its semi-Shakespearean prose, here it feels inflated and pretentious. Aragorn's address is reduced to a ridiculous and shallow "Let's all live together in harmony" speech that, to me, is a huge disappointment in context of the film's gigantic scale.

Return of the King suffers in its two hours and fifty minutes before the ending from the same shortcomings as The Two Towers—a broken storyline and a pretentious screenplay. The tricks that were used so well at first have become worn thin—the Ringwraiths, which in Fellowship managed to magnificently convey a real sense of evil and terror, are reduced to dinosaur-riding apparitions that are almost laughable. With the exception of the very well-done tunnel scene (which does produce the desired effect of suspense and shock), the monster scenes make you feel like you're watching some B-flick. One particularly ugly Orc, which I guess we are supposed to believe is some sort of supreme embodiment of Orc-like evilness, is never explained, never given any sort of credibility. In fact, none of the monsters have that grippingly real feel, which takes away from their scariness.

The main thing that keeps a film alive for me is characters, especially in a film that tries to convey some deeper meaning like the Rings trilogy does. Most of the characters in Return of the King were about as three-dimensional as a life-size cardboard representation of a popular actor or sports figure. There is a clear demarcation here between good and evil, with little nuance to either side. Even the scenes where Gollum "battles" with himself are two-dimensional, from the "dialogue" right down to the cinematography, which shows that there are two very clear sides and nothing in between. The movie seems to be trying to show here that people can have complexities, but it doesn't work because it doesn't set up any complexities in its moral world. The Ring gives Evil a single embodiment: it is the source of evil Saurons' power, and the source of Gollum's treachery. The idea that all the bad deeds in the movie can be traced back to this one palpable object reduces the entire story to a one-dimensional and shallow didactic fable.

And with all the fireworks that the film provides, the glories it tries to convey, the tragedies, this doesn't feel credible. I find myself yearning for something more complex, deeper, more meaningful. Maybe that's why I didn't like this movie: despite its remarkable action sequences, its overblown and inflated dialogue, it didn't have any real heart. I would say that this is okay, except for the fact that the film tried to be so much more than it really was. It set itself up as a gargantuan epic and ended up getting lost in itself. This is surely one of the greatest efforts in film history—I admire Jackson just for taking the risk. I can understand why he was chosen for the Oscars—the trilogy does manage to sweep you along with its story and the breathtaking scenery and cinematography certainly keep your eyes glued to the screen.

Unfortunately, such a huge, epic project needs more than dazzling special effects, more than flowery dialogue, more than huge battle sequences, more than a plethora of characters. It needs a heart behind it to match. As Dr. Seuss would say, Return of the King's heart is "three sizes too small." Despite its epic proportions, the film just doesn't feel "real." It plays on emotions, it dazzles the mind, but it doesn't really touch the heart; and ultimately, this lack of depth left me feeling insatiated after the bombardment of glories and tragedies.

In conclusion, this is a film that impresses but does not stay. In terms of scope, it may be the greatest epic ever made; but unfortunately, it doesn't live up to itself. It could have been vastly improved even just by cutting the running time down to three hours; instead, it feels grand but empty—in a word, pretentious.

And pretentiousness is, in my mind, inexcusable.

"A" for effort, "D" for product. Thumbs down. Two stars.

Kiki's Delivery Service (1989)

A beautiful and introspective masterpiece

[10/10 · 21 June 2005]

Having already been familiar with and a great admirer of some of Miyazaki's other Ghibli films, including Princess Mononoke, I turned to Kiki's Delivery Service on the recommendation of someone who suggested it as "light-hearted" fun. Being an eighteen-year-old male, I didn't think it would be much more than that—a guilty pleasure to indulge in once in a while, something I could watch and then say, "Aw, what a cute film!" But Kiki's Delivery Service is so much more than "light-hearted fun." For one, it is a beautifully animated work of cinematic art, with Miyazaki's usual flair for gorgeous landscapes and astonishing detail. As in his recent films Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, Miyazaki's brush paints a beautiful world.

There is not much to be said about the plot itself: Kiki is a 13-year-old witch who has just left home to begin a year of training on her own, and she moves to a seaside European town, befriends a husband and wife baker, and sets up a flying delivery service.

What sets Kiki's Delivery Service apart from many of Miyazaki's other works is the personal, rather than epic, nature of the story. It wonderfully captures the day-to-day life of an aspiring 13-year-old girl moving into the life of a bustling town. While there is plenty to please the thrill-seeking adventurous spirit, the film's real beauty lies in its ability to portray the more introverted aspects of life. Most Western animated cinema centers around loud, pop-influenced music and a bad-guy-fighting action-oriented plot, but Kiki's Delivery Service has a charming and understated musical score, and lacks a traditional antagonist. Life isn't all excitement and fighting bad guys—something that this film seems to get across more than any Disney, Pixar, Fox, or other Western animated film I've ever seen. In fact, the doldrums of life are what form the heart of this film, as Kiki finds that she begins to lose her witch's abilities and can no longer fly.

Kiki's Delivery Service is a masterpiece, one of my all-time favorite films, and Kiki's search for the heart within herself is a tale that adults may appreciate more than their children. Indeed, Kiki is one of the most appealing characters that Miyazaki ever brought to life, which is certainly saying something. One of Miyazaki's great arts is in never talking down to his audience, and this fantastic story is no exception.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984)

A Masterpiece of Animated Cinema

[9/10 · 25 May 2005]

Director Hayao Miyazaki won a place in my heart after I saw his 2001 film Spirited Away. I'm in no position to claim to be an expert on Miyazaki (I've only seen three of his films), nor am I really a big fan of Japanese animation; but I can safely say that Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is one of the very best animated films I have ever seen. The beauty of the animation is stunning, with its close attention to detail--every frame is constructed as a work of art--and the story is enthralling. As with other Miyazaki films, the majority of characters are much more three-dimensional that you typically get in Western animated features, and nearly all of them aren't exactly what they seem to be.

Nausicaä, which is based on Miyazaki's gargantuan Manga series, is set in the distant future, after fires destroyed much of the earth. The world is being consumed by the Sea of Decay, a toxic forest that spreads through airborne spores and is protected by giant insects called ohmu. The Valley of the Wind is one of the last pure places on earth, and its Princess, Nausicaä, is a strong-willed yet free-spirited young woman seeking to solve the mystery of the Sea of Decay. A nearby nation, which claims to have harnessed the power that allowed humans to rule the earth a thousand years before, takes over after a plane carrying a mysterious living cargo crashes in the valley. What follows in the film is a struggle, not of good versus evil, but of man versus nature. The story is complex, as is its message, and Miyazaki has ingeniously spun deep complexities into the animated characters: what look like foes may not be, and what look like friends may be a bit more dangerous.

The animation is colorful, sweeping, expansive, and beautiful, as are the plot and characters. There is an immediacy to the story that makes a big emotional impact and makes us question how we handle our position in nature. As one of the characters in the film asks, have humans become but a tribe destined to be swallowed by the Sea of Decay? It is ultimately a film about compassion in the face of violence and war, which is what makes it so different from Western features.

Disney's recent DVD release is excellent. The film can be watched either in the original Japanese audio or Pixar's dub with Patrick Stewart and Uma Thurman, and there are separate subtitles for each language track--a literal one (hallelujah!) for the Japanese track, and a more closed-captions style set for the English track. The film is so stunning in the Japanese that I have never considered watching the dub, though a fellow film buff has said that it is "not so bad." After this film was released in the US in the 1980s in a completely mangled version called Warriors of the Wind, Miyazaki suspended all US rights of all his other films until the distributor would honor the stipulation that they be released without any editing. The fact that Disney, which is known for watering down nearly everything it touches, has done this with such a non-Western-style movie is amazing.