My Neighbor Totoro (1988)

Hayao Miyazaki's classic tale of childhood in rural Japan is still good upon a second viewing. The two young girls are very realistic as they yell and scream and play.  Miyazaki typically has strong young female protagonists in his movies By now, Totoro and the cat bus are iconic characters, making cameos in Disney movies and appearing on all sorts of merchandise. Sitting in a French cafe in Cannes, I heard and recognized Joe Hisaishi's soundtrack. It caught everyone's attention as they wondered what the hauntingly beautiful music was. I knew. And then the cutesy main theme played and everyone figured it out cause they say "Totoro." I'm not sure what the instrumentation is though. It sounds metallic, perhaps an organ of some sort. The story tugs at your heart. At its core, it's about family relationships between siblings and between parents and children.  

The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness (2013)

This documentary takes us behind the scenes of the famed Studio Ghibli in Japan; home to legendary filmmakers Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata. The film focuses primarily on Miya-san and his final film The Wind Rises.  It also alludes to Takahata and his final film The Tale of the Princess Kaguya dragging along.  Miyazaki hypothesizes that Takahata had no intention of finishing this movie, though it was released last year to much acclaim.

This documentary is a fitting end to an era of Japanese animated film. I grew up with these films and it is bittersweet; the film is somber hinting at the impending closure of the studio.  This movie is a eulogy of sorts for Studio Ghibli and it is beautiful.  Miyazaki is candid, musing about his art and life.  It is truly special to watch the hand-drawn animation process, an art that is losing steam to computer animation.  In the grand spectrum of cinema, this movie may not be a hallmark in film history, but it documents one of the most important men in one of the most important studios in film history.

The Wind Rises (2013)

Having grown up with Hayao Miyazaki's films, I was very saddened to hear that he would be retiring.  This was his final film. In the past, Miyazaki has shown a fascination with flight (much like his protagonist), and his films have featured pacifist themes.  It is Miyazaki's only film based on real life, though it retains his signature fantastical elements in lifelike dreams and imagination. The Wind Rises is about Jiro Horikoshi, who designed Japanese war planes during WWII--or rather he designed planes that Japan used for war.  Miyazaki ran into some controversy.  The film does not attempt to glorify a weapons maker, but an engineer and artist whose art was corrupted by war.  Horikoshi sums his feelings up in one line: "All I wanted to do was to make something beautiful."

As always in Studio Ghibli's films, the animation is incredible.  Depicting prewar Japan (which I became very familiar with after taking a class on Modern Japan last semester), Horikoshi experiences the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923.  Watching this animated world shake and the city set ablaze is a feat of animation.  If there is any question as to Miyazaki's pacifist views, all the characters question who the warplanes would be used to attack, surely not America.  After reading John Dower's Embracing Defeat, I learned that most Japanese in the weapons industry were always aware of how behind Japan was technologically.  They knew that western weapons were far superior and figured Japan would not dare bomb America.  Miyazaki does not shy away from the historical facts, but presents it honestly.