Hayao Miyazaki is an acknowledged master of anime, a genre
of filmmaking that combines animation with themes from Japanese culture. I
understand and appreciate that animation as a genre is popular throughout the
world, and that other countries have cultivated it as well, with notable recent
examples being the French film The
Triplets of Belleville. Furthermore, different national traditions in
animation are enhanced by association with related media platforms, of which we
may signal out the publication of illustrated books (comics) known as bandes
dessinées for Francophone audiences and, of course, the vigorous manga tradition in Japan. In these
cultural expressions there are elements of melodrama and fantasy, as well as themes
and images derived from the cultural and symbolic language of science fiction,
crime serializations (notable in creations such as Fantomas) and comic historical epics (think Asterix in Belgium or Lone
Wolf and Cub in Japan). They are all melded with a vigorous youth culture
that thrives on fan clubs, the collection of associated consumer products such
as clothing, action figures and others, conventions, role-playing (of which we
can single out, for example, cosplay) and other mediums of participation.
However, anime as developed in Japan seems to have developed its own distinct
national characteristics, a style and outlook as well as a catalogue of
narrative formulas that distinguish it from the animation that is practiced in
other countries.
In the case of Miyazaki, his films seem to revolve around
stories that we may describe as modern-day folk tales with a pastoral note.
There is a timeless quality to so many of them, even if they may be situated in
epochs that may range from the pre-industrial age (Princess Mononoke) to industrial (Howl’s Moving Castle) to the modern post-industrial era where
consumerism is erasing national mythologies and, by extension, unique spiritual
values (Spirited Away, winner of the
Best Animated Feature Academy Award in 2002). It is striking to me how often
these stories involve characters, almost always young girls, who face difficult
circumstances and who learn moral lessons that involve learning to trust one’s
instincts (reinforcing unique spiritual values associated with a particular culture),
find a firmer connection with society while at the same time maintaining a
sense of wonder and innocence, as a reaction to the convergence of predatory
forces so often unleashed in these films.
In Laputa:
Castle in the Sky, released in 1986, we have one of the first films to have been
written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, and produced by Studio Ghibli. It amply
illustrates several of the themes listed above, all combined with the strong
storytelling that has been a feature of all of his films. It is on one level a
caper film with two young protagonist (the orphans Sheeta and Pazu, the first
being a mysterious girl who drops out of the sky in the opening sequence and
the latter being a young and industrious boy who lives in a mining town) who
are chased by pirates as well as government agents. We also have elements of
fantasy that reveal a deep-seated psychological underpinning, for example, the
need that we can project for all young people to find a home of their own, and
to make sense of their past, both personal as well as social, elements that are
involved in any rite of passage. And, we have a tale of wonder with implied
political commentary, evident in the quest for a magical place, the castle in
the sky, that proves a backdrop for a Faustian quest for knowledge.
We have seen these themes before, of course, for they have appeared
over and over in epic fantasies, in fairy tales, and in political thrillers. It
is the way in which these themes are seamlessly melded together that
characterizes the quiet assurance of Miyazaki as a writer and animator. He
manages to combine these elements to produce a film that is at once a story of
innocent first love as well as a fable that warns against the dangers of
Science (with a capital “S”) pursued without ethical restraint (harking back to
the theme of Faust, and the allegory of power that corrupts). One obtains, from
time to time, the impression that these films of Miyazaki are pastorals, by
which I am referring to the idealization of a pre-industrial past, and the
notion that communities and ideals back in an earlier period were much more
rooted in local and sustainable traditions. There is almost always an
associated element of wonder that accompanies these reflections, situated as
they are not only in idealized historical epochs, but also in idealized
psychosocial stages in an individual’s development, for they are evocations of
the innocence of childhood. There is an element of reverie in these films, and
as in all such experiences, there are moments of encounter where the sense of
wonder is evoked in touching ways, depending on the scale of the encounters. We
have, for example, the monumental, which is evident in view afforded by majestic
cloudscapes and the quiet and peaceful gardens of Laputa, or in the almost cathedral-like forest canopy in a film
such as Princess Mononoke, or more
recently, in the sheer profusion of sea life that is revealed in a symphony of
movement and color in the opening sequence of Ponyo. But there is also a smaller scale, that of personal contact,
that is evident in small gestures, in moments of intimacy, in the way children
can reach out to hold each other’s hands, or smile at the antics of a friend,
as happens with the character of Turnip-head who follows around the protagonist
in the movie Howl’s Moving Castle.
I am struck as well by the vertical landscapes in a film
such as Laputa: Castle in the Sky. In
this case it seems to play a prominent part, alluding as it does to social and
well as emotional distance, and emblematized by repeated cliffhanger sequences
that characterize this film. Sheeta isn’t the only protagonist who inhabits the
sky, we have air-borne pirates as well, led by the middle-aged woman with pink
ponytails named Dola, but also, evident in the monstrous government battleships
that sweep across in great aerial vistas. And, we have a mining village that
seems to be perched on a cliff like a modern-day Machu Pichu, with houses
situated precariously on the very edge of precipitous cliffs, and railroad
tracks that, for all the use of iron and metal in other constructions, are
built, astoundingly, of wood, arcing over deep chasms. And, of course, deep down
inside the mines, we have an interior landscape notable for great airy spaces,
the equivalent of the sky but hallowed out in stone and reverential echoes, where
the old grandfather who knows much of the lore of these communities is located,
hiking alone. The stone cavern is illuminated by the shimmer of glowing
reflections, provided as they are by traces of an element that is mysterious
and full of power, as all such elements should be if they are to preserve an
element of magic. In the modern day
equivalent, we can help but think of them as quite possible uranium or some
such radioactive element, which is also lethal if concentrated or if exposure
is not limited, which only serves to underscore that these disguised elements
are part of a narrative that, once again, warns against scientific hubris, an
enduring theme of science fiction.
After having
mentioned science fiction, it would seem natural as well to talk about the
nature of technology in evidence in this film. It is a curious mixture that I
would venture to call a form of “retro futurism”, for it harks back to what I
would like to imagine is a 19th century conception of technological
development. We have no circuit boards, no solid state physics, and no consumer
electronics of the kind that have produced modern-day wonders such as IPhones.
We have instead dirigibles made of iron that somehow are maintained in the air
with immense rotors, and elaborate as well as massive pipe works that provide
the power necessary to excavate the earth, and of course, steam trains that run
on charcoal and that seem strangely quaint as they chug along wooden tracks
that disintegrate during chase sequences. How will the destruction of these
tracks and bridges impact a mining community that depends on this mode of
transportation to deliver the products they extract from the mines, when it is
evident that reconstructing them will be subject to immense delays? There is,
notably, little social realism in these films, and no true representation of
the poor and their suffering, where pain is more emotional rather than
economic, but we are talking, once again, about pastorals, and the idealization
of distant realms.
The flying vehicles that are flown by the family of pirates
resemble nothing so much as iron gnats or ladybugs, and the daredevil moves of
the pilots as they fly through the sky produce an adrenaline rush that is evoked
continually in this film. Vertical thrill are much in evidence in this film,
one in which protagonists are always on the verge of falling off cliffs, sky
ships, bridges, railroad tracks or a floating island, but one in which these
predicaments are conveyed with an element of whimsy rather than nail-biting
terror. In one sequence towards the end of the film, the young boy Pazu is
forced to cling desperately to the roots of the giant tree that are revealed as
the lower levels of the island begin to crumble away, in another cliffhanger
sequence that can’t help but recall the famous scene in the film The Empire
Strikes Back when Luke Skywalker is similarly perched beneath the fortress of
Lando Calrissian. It is, then, what I could venture to say a Victorian vision
of the future in which domestic arrangements and prosperity is threatened by
the operation of grander social institutions that have become unmoored from
local communities, operating with a level of detachment without moral restraint
that as a fable exerts a powerful hold on the imagination particularly now, in
the 21st century.
And we have robots, giant and silent creatures that lumber
like industrial age golems, the personal servants of the inheritors of Laputa
and guardians of the realm. These robots can themselves be turned against their
charges and are capable of wielding immense destructive energy, for not only
are they almost indestructible, they also shoot energy beams from their eyes.
They point, once again, to the message that is underscored again and again in
this film, that of the perils of unrestrained (read, unethical) technological
development, and to the allegorical foundation of this theme which is found in
Mary Shelley’s classic novel, Frankenstein.
It must be remarked that a Miyazaki film would not be
complete if it were not for the inclusion of themes not only of reconciliation
(with society, with the land, with oneself) but also of redemption. This is
part of the moral underpinning of his films, and I am struck over and over by
how often it is that the innocent protagonists in his films reach out to their
putative enemies and, in a sense, redeem them, providing as they do an
experience that is characteristic of melodrama. After all, as the critic Peter
Brooks noted so long ago, melodrama so often involves revealing what we could
call the “moral occult”, the true moral qualities of the protagonists that were
hidden, and in redeeming figures who had previously seemed beyond redemption (a
powerful element in romantic literature as well). Which is not to say that we
don’t have villains who, in their malevolence, seem frustratingly
uni-dimensional and remind me of the simplistic conception of neocons and
social conservatives in this country who like to speak in simplistic terms of
dichotomy between “good guys” and “bad guys”, a la George W. But we also have
hidden allies, which in many of Miyazaki’s films takes the form of wizened,
vigorous and comic old women, characters such as Dola the “Captain” of the
pirates, or in the case of a film such as Howl’s
Moving Castle, the chastened “Witch of the Waste”. That is part of the joy
of these films, seeing how this moral spectacle unfolds by the coherence of a
new family, incorporating individuals who previously had seemed so threatening
to the protagonists. This serves to underscore, once again, a moral lesson,
that allies are found everywhere, even in the outsiders of society.
The film was highly enjoyable, and while it is one of
Miyazaki’s earlier films, it already shares many of the themes that appear again and again in his oeuvre. The idea of the magic island, invested with
magical powers and in need of a sovereign who can wield its power, whether
rightly or wrongly, is one that has epic qualities and that resonates deeply in
the Western imagination. It is found in Homer, in the narrative of travellers,
soldiers and heroes who wish to reclaim their inheritance or to prove
themselves, and it is evident in a work such as Shakespeare’s The Tempest, or most recently in the
popular imagination, the deeply muddled television series “Lost”. In the end,
it has an allegorical quality that warns against the powerful impulse that is
harbored in all of humanity, but also conveys the seduction of magical
landscapes, and the search for a sense of cohesion in a fragmented world.
OGRomero © 2013
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