“No matter how many weapons you have, no matter how great your technology might be, the world cannot live without love.”
Still Need to Watch: The Castle of Cagliostro
After years of hype about the Hayao Miyazaki films, I could not help but feel underwhelmed by his work. They are not bad by any stretch. I was just taken aback by how much they bordered on twee. I was not expecting to feel like they were just hand-drawn Pixars. And while they are artistically and visually more ambitious, thematically and emotionally they often end up too close to Pixar for comfort.
11. Ponyo [2008]
Ponyo is another Miyazaki that goes too far into the coming-of-age direction, not enough “look at the chaos humankind has ravaged on the earth” direction that I prefer from him. The latter is of course there in part, but this walked to dangerously close to the edge of the twee cliff (and probably even look out over it.
10. Kiki’s Delivery Service [1989]
Kiki’s Delivery Service is a sweet and touching coming of age story. It did not make much of an impression on me beyond that. Life is hard. Growing up is hard. This movie moved more in the twee direction at times that I am allergic to.
9. Porco Rosso [1992]
Porco Rosso is one of the few Miyazaki films I can honestly say I never heard talk about at all before seeing it on a list of Miyazaki films. Just about every film from Miyazaki has resulted in some sort of prolonged buzz that eventually reached my ears. Why not this one? I am not too positive, but it is largely an underwhelming affair. It is merely solid and not too memorable. But I do like the anti-fascism in it. So there’s something.
8. Spirited Away [2001]
I have come to the realization that Miyazaki films that are just full-on coming of age stories don’t hit as hard as his more direct takedowns of human civilization and all its “advancements.” It was a touching story and the art work was gorgeous. That makes every Miyazaki film pleasurable at some base level. I am kind of surprised this one is such a phenomenon though.
7. The Boy and the Heron [2023]
I am never not confused when I watch a Miyazaki film because I cannot reconcile what I am experiencing and how I am getting so much less out of his films than apparently almost everyone else in the world. His latest and much celebrated film is yet another example of this phenomenon.
The first half of the film is actually really intriguing. It follows a boy whose mother died during the war. He is very sad. A lot of the film is following him around in silence (except for the stunning score). This portion of the film really allows you to just sit in the grief and all that that entails. You get to take in the pleasures of the gorgeous hand drawn images.
Then the second half of the film happens. This is when Miyazaki goes into the twee zone. It just rips the emotion out of the film and severs all ties I had with what I was honestly enjoying up until this time. Once his films start feeling twee, there is just this undeniable feeling that you are watching something for children. And I hate it. I cannot in good faith this film is bad or even one of the worst Miyazakis – it’s just that it was a rare one that offered or teased something more and then took it away from me.
6. My Neighbor Totoro [1988]
The beautiful relationship of the Kusakabe family in the face of the mother’s illness carried this film to be genuinely sweet when it could have easily fallen into twee status. The heart of the movie is captured in the moment when Mei tells her father and sister that she met Totoro, and the instant acceptance of her story by the father really hit me in such a distinct way. There is such value in just accepting people’s truth regardless of whether or not it makes sense. I do not have much else to add beyond this was a very successful Miyazaki introduction for me.
5. Howl’s Moving Castle [2004]
Howl’s does many of the things that I like most about Miyazaki movies while limiting most of the ones that frustrate me. It is about adults. It confronts head-on issues about human civilization. In addition to those features though, it also confronted the fragility of being alive and growing old. It may not have felt profound of anything, but it added an additional layer of depth to the film.
4. Castle in the Sky [1986]
[Disclaimer: I accidentally watched the English version because I thought MAX did not have the Japanese version. It probably harmed my opinion of the film because James Van Der Beek is truly wretched in one of the two main roles.]
“No matter how many weapons you have, no matter how great your technology might be, the world cannot live without love.”
Castle in the Sky at times feels a little immature, but overall it is another beautiful examination of one of the core tragedies of human civilization. We just seem incapable of not destroying the paradise that has been afforded us. As a species, we have been unable to universally co-exist with our planet. There have always been too-powerful elements that are hell-bent and determined to pillage every last space. It is profoundly sad.
3. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind [1984]
Nausicaä tells one of the most important and classic stories about human civilization. Societies are warring against each other while the earth rots beneath our feat. And there is seemingly nothing that can be done to stop it. Now, because it is a movie there is a chosen one character who will eventually be able to fix things. While that dynamic is inherently last satisfying, the journey of this film is beautiful and heartbreaking in all too familiar ways.
2. Princess Mononoke [1997]
Miyazaki is at his best when he is confronting the tragedy of human civilization’s determination to wipe out life on the planet. After a couple of films where he was drifting dangerously away from that concept, he returned to it in force here with one of his strongest outings. It is a bit messy and all over the place but those are welcome qualities.
1. The Wind Rises [2013]
The Wind Rises is head and shoulders above the rest of the Miyazaki films. It is a film that feels like it is exclusively targeted to adult minds with few to no concessions made for the minds of children (or child-like minds). It is a somber movie about the cruelty of the world. How perverse the world is and how it responds to creativity and innovation. And about to finding ways to make with that and finding genuine joy and love in life. This film touched me quite a bit and definitely in a way his previous films had not.
The Reel World 