Film Review: When Marnie Was There vs. Inside Out

When Marnie Was There Publisher: Toho (JP), GKIDS / Universal (NA)  Production Company: Studio Ghibli  Genre: Drama  Release: 19 July 2014 (JP), 22 May 2015 (NA)  Director: Hiromasa Yonebayashi  Producers: Yoshiaki Nishimura, Toshio Suzuki  Writers: Masashi Andō, Keiko Niwa, Hiromasa Yonebayashi	Inside Out Publisher: Disney  Production Company: Walt Disney Pictures / Pixar Animation Studios  Genre: Comedy / Drama  Release: 19 June 2015  Directors: Pete Docter, Ronnie del Carmen  Producer: Jonas Rivera  Writers: Pete Docter, Meg LeFauve, Josh Cooley

Welp, another year, another Academy Awards ceremony. And you know what that means: they're gonna give the Best Animated Feature award to the Disney/Pixar behemoth. It happened to Frozen over The Wind Rises, it happened to Big Hero 6 over The Tale of The Princess Kaguya, and odds are it'll happen again. I've been preparing for the worst, especially since the "big one" of 2015, Pixar's Inside Out, is going up against When Marnie Was There, the last feature film Studio Ghibli may ever make. In a past article, I told you how I saw Marnie in theatres, despite its limited release, and enjoyed it. Well, in the interest of voting with my wallet, I refused to do the same for Inside Out, even when they gave it an encore run for Labor Day. Eventually I rented the movie and, I'm ashamed to say it... it was awesome. But then I realised something: both Marnie and Inside Out tackle the same basic story in different ways. Marnie focuses on the characters themselves, whereas Inside Out focuses on what's going on inside the main character's mind, with her personified emotions. So, I thought, now would be the best time to do another joint review on the two movies. That way, I can pre-empt the Academy more substantially than just a joke at the end of my last article.

In When Marnie Was There, our central character is Anna "no, not that one" Sasaki (EN: Hayley Steinfeld, JP: Sara Takatsuki), a twelve-year-old girl living in Hokkaido, who is shy but loves drawing. When she suffers an athsma attack, her foster parents send her to live out to a seaside village with her aunt and uncle. While exploring her new surroundings, she comes across a dilapidated mansion, and in the window, a blonde girl of her age named Marnie (EN: Kiernan Shipka, JP: Kasumi Arimura). Over the next few nights, she starts spending time with Marnie, building their freindship and uncovering the mysteries behind Marnie's life, as well as her own.

So yeah, Marnie sticks rather closely to the Ghibli playbook. But, as it turns out, this movie was based on a novel of the same name, written by the British author Joan G. Robinson in 1967. Studio Ghibli has adopted Western literature before; Howl's Moving Castle and The Secret World of Arietty (a.k.a. The Borrowers) spring to mind. The central plot device of Marnie, if there is one, is figuring out what the deal is with its titular character. Is she a real girl? Is she a ghost? Is she a figment of Anna's imagination? Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Without wishing to spoil, the way they explain all of this in the final act is kind of rushed. I mean, Anna doesn't even start her investigation into Marnie's past until halfway through the movie!

The feels that Marnie generates are weapons-grade.

But what the film lacks in a good overarcing plot, it makes up for in the individual moments that comprise the plot. When I was watching, I found myself lost in the emotions of the main characters: joy when they're playing together, sadness when they're sharing their darkest secrets, and bittersweet resignation when it's time for Anna to leave. (Sort of like Ghibli themselves.) To put it another way, this is what I wished Frozen was like when reviewed it: it focuses solely on its two main characters and how they develop together. And I have to give a shout-out to the foley artist, because the sound effects in this movie are amazing. For some reason, I don't normally notice this sort of thing, but when certain scenes go on without music and even dialog, you have to notice them. And from the waves lapping at the creaking wood of a rowboat, the sound effects do even more to build upon the ambience of some scenes.

Having re-watched When Marnie Was There, I seem to have enjoyed it less than I did at first. If it wanted to have the mystery of Marnie be its driving plot thread, they should have spaced out its developments more evenly across the film, rather than bunch them all up near the end. And some of Anna's behaviours are downright bizarre, although I suppose they do illustrate the gaping void in her mental state that only Marnie can fill. In conclusion, is it Studio Ghibli's best effort? Probably not, although they have set the bar so phenomenally high for themselves in the past, mind you. If you don't mind not having a strong plot to hook you from one scene to the next, and can get by on the scenes themselves, I would still recommend When Marnie Was There.

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Meanwhile, in Inside Out, our central character is Riley Andersen (Kaitlyn Dias), an eleven-year-old girl living in Minnesota, who is goofy but honest, and loves hockey. The difference here is that much of the movie is, in fact, portrayed from the point of view of personified emotions living in her head. In order of introduction, they are Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Bill Hader), Disgust (Mindy Kaling), and Anger (Lewis Black). These emotions control Riley's actions at the appropriate moments, generating memories tied to those emotions. But then, everything changes when when her family moves to San Francisco. Due to a series of unfortunate events, Joy and Sadness get stranded together outside their headquarters and must venture back somehow.

The world of Riley's psyche is nothing short of a joy to behold. Functions of the brain are illustrated in inventive ways, such as the formation of memories, ideas, personality traits, and dreams. A highlight is when Joy and Sadness wander into a section of Riley's mind where new general ideas abstracted from specific ones. In the movie, this means that Joy and Sadness are devolved into low-polygon and eventually 2D forms as they try to escape. Sure, nothing comes about from it in practice and it is never brought up again (making it the movie's "Big Lipped Alligator Moment"), but the process they go through shows great research of psychology on the part of the writers. I mean, as far as I know about psychology. We also get to see glimpses of similar mental setups of different characters here and there, each tailored to their own personality.

Inside Out's settings look like they came straight from the mind of Willy Wonka -- almost literally.

What Inside Out has over Marnie is how it manages to create suspence to hook the viewer in. For example, in Riley's head there exist five "personality islands", depicting her interests and personality traits. Over the course of her mental breakdown, the island crumble into the bottomless pit below. We are told that whatever falls down there, i.e. memories that are no longer needed, can never return. But later on in the story, Joy falls down there herself, where said pit is decidedly non-bottomless, and of course she comes back out of it. And of course she does it with the help of someone who sacrifices himself to let her escape. So, it would seem that Inside Out isn't above employing the odd sappy cliche here and there, albeit rarely. Although I will give them credit for actually showing her eventual mode of egress falling into the pit earlier on. Let that be but one example of Pixar's attention to detail.

While I'm nitpicking, isn't it a bit lopsided for Riley to have one "positive" emotion, namely Joy, and four "negative" ones, especially when the one Joy gets stuck with, Sadness, has a bad habit of converting memories to sad ones by touching them? To the film's credit, and without wishing to spoil, they do address this. Speaking of the emotions, one of the most important things to keep in mind when assembling a cast of voice actors is for each actor to sound distinct from one another. I'm proud to say that this is another of Inside Out's strengths. Amy Poehler was perfectly cast as Joy, although I did love her on Saturday Night Live to begin with. The other emotion characters also manage to bring their titular personality traits through by their voice alone.

My prejudices against CG animation being what they are, "pleasantly surprised" doesn't begin to describe my experience with Inside Out. Mind you, Marnie managed to get those emotions across to the viewer without needing to personify them. But if you ask me, Inside Out had the better story, and getting to witness such creative sights along the way was a bonus. There are a few stupid or silly moments to nitpick, but they are rare and don't represent the film as a whole. All things considered, I would recommend both films for different reasons. If you want straight-up, weapons-grade feels, try out When Marnie Was There. If you want a gripping story to go with those feels, go with Inside Out. It's a big world out there, certainly big enough for both of them.

When Marnie Was There Positives: + Individual scenes are packed with emotion. + Deals with a number of complex themes. + Brilliant sound-effect work. Negatives: - For less patient viewers, it lacks a suspenceful hook. - Retreads more than a few story tropes covered by past Ghibli films. - The rushed conclusion. Acting: 4 emotions out of 5 Writing: 3 emotions out of 5 Design: 4 emotions out of 5 Audiovisual: 5 emotions out of 5 The Call: 80% (B)

Inside Out Positives: + Well-researched and creative interpretations of the brain's functions. + Terriffic voice-acting that complements each character's personality. Negatives: - It has a few minor plot holes. Acting: 5 emotions out of 5 Writing: 4 emotions out of 5 Design: 5 emotions out of 5 Audiovisual: 5 emotions out of 5 The Call: 95% (A)

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In the end, I may not like to admit it, but not only do I think Inside Out is the better movie, I probably wouldn't lose sleep if it won the Best Animated Feature Oscar. But that's not the whole story. There's this thing called the Annie Awards, which has been going on since 1972, and honours animation in movies, television, and even video games. Ghibli's movies have been nominated for the Annie's Best Animated Feature awards several times over, and just like in the Oscars, failed to actually win.

But this time around, for the 43rd Annie Awards held on 6 February 2016, they added a new category: "Best Animated Feature - Independent", and I'm glad they did. This means that films with lower profiles but bigger hearts don't have to compete against our mainstream monstrosities. Not that such "mainstream monstrosities" can't also have heart, as we learned in this article. But the important thing is that now, for once, the underdogs have a more level playing field.

Oh, and for the record, the winner of the independent award was the Brazilian feature Boy and the World. It looks great, but given the fate of Studio Ghibli, I can't help but feel a little disappointed... Studio Ghibli may be dead, or just in a coma depending on whim you talk to, but another door to the wider world of animation is opening to us. Let's keep opening more doors, shall we?

This is IchigoRyu.

You are the resistance.

Editorial: When Marnie Was There & Silent Hills

This weekend, I took a trip down to Center City Philadelphia to see When Marnie Was There, the latest anime film by Studio Ghibli. Limited-release films like these tend to be a bit... geographically undesireable because of how far away I live, but the way I figured, it might be my last chance to see a Studio Ghibli movie on the big screen, so I took the plunge. See, as anyone with an interest in Studio Ghibli knows, this is their last movie to be released as the studio shuts down on an "indeterminate hiatus", following the retirement of its star director, Hayao Miyazaki. Even Marnie's review in the Philadelphia Inquirer discussed it in the context of those circumstances. So with the knowledge that this may be Ghibli's last impression, my sentiments toward the company might cloud me from giving an objective opinion on Marnie. Plus, I don't normally indulge in full reviews for films I only saw in theatres once, so I'll do what I did with The Wind Rises the first time around and embellish this here editorial with a mini-review.

The plot follows a pattern shared with a number of Studio Ghibli movies, with occasional variations: A girl moves out to the countryside and then (frequently supernatural) stuff happens. Off the top of my head, I recognise this framework from My Neighbour Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service (although the girl moves to the city), Spirited Away, The Secret World of Arietty (although the girl is instead a boy), and the film on hand. But that's not a bad thing per se, as often these movies develop an identity of their own as they move along. In this case, the girl is a blue-eyed preteen named Anna. While out one day wandering about her new neighbourhood, her eye catches on a mansion on the other side of a marsh, and on a blonde-haired girl in the upstairs window, the titular Marnie. One night she sneaks out to meet Marnie in person, and the two strike up a friendship in no time flat.

The film does a great job of establishing how completely broken Anna is on her own, and how Marnie fills in the missing pieces of her psyche. To make one of my many Evangelion allegories, Anna is like Shinji, and Marnie is like Kaworu Nagisa, the only person in her life willing to provide her with unconditional affection. And what other connection is there between Marnie and the Shinji/Kaworu episode? "Both parties are the same gender?" That's right! I don't know about you, but when I saw the trailer for this movie, I wondered if the Anna/Marnie relationship would be of a lesbian nature. And I'd have been alright with that; proud, even, because of how sensibly mature the movie treats their interactions. But in truth, the nature of their relationship is strictly platonic. Which is also nice; I mean, can't two people of the same gender have a deep friendship without other people bringing it into homosexual territory? ...Not that's a bad thing... Don't worry, I meant less offence than you probably took that as (unless it was zero to start with).

But more than anything, Marnie feels real, supernatural elements notwithstanding. It touches on a number of real-world troubles in varying capacity, such as adopted children, bullying in the family, and even xenophobia. Remember when I said Anna had blue eyes? Yeah, that's a plot point. Some plot elements are a bit out of place and fail to go anywhere, like when Marnie and one of her peers lash out at each other at the Tanabata festival. But that's about it. I even cried while watching this movie! ...Okay, not really; I don't cry that easily, more like I got misty-eyed. Yeah, I got misty-eyed. How many films can I make that boast about? On more levels than one, When Marnie Was There is one such film. And for that honour, I shall bestow upon it a tentative grade of 5 out of 5 (A) and a Dragon Award.

So now that the review is over, let's get back to the topic at hand: When Marnie Was There is potentially the final feature film to be made by Studio Ghibli. This is a worrisome situation because Ghibli has been a heretofore never-ending force of good in the animation world. (Bear in mind, I make that statement not yet having seen Tales of Earthsea.) Seriously, a great chunk of their works have been nominated for the Best Animated Feature Academy Award since that category was created. Of course, only one of them actually won, but that's a different crisis altogether. But with Studio Ghibli gone, who's going to pick up the mantle of making critically acclaimed anime films? Or does the next big thing in animation even have to be Japanese? There's this one director I've started following recently, named Tomm Moore, and I've read his output as being likened to an Irish counterpart to Studio Ghibli. Although relatively new to the scene, both of his works The Secret of Kells (2009) and Song of the Sea (2014) are distincly awesome. They were also nominated for the aforementioned Oscar; of course they didn't win either, because the jurors involve are just fff... Philistines. (I have to admit that joke works better when you hear rather than read it. Still, last-second word swaps FTW!)

But looking back on this whole affair brings to mind a certain... other event I've obsessed over lately, involving the cancellation of a certain long-hoped-for video game. "Gee Kevin", you may be thinking, "how many articles are you gonna write about Mega Man Legends 3?"

No, you idiot, the other one!

I'm talking about Silent Hills, the would-be reboot of the survival-horror franchise Silent Hill, collaborated upon with Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima, film director Guillermo del Toro, and actor Norman Reedus. Actually, there are a number of similarities between the circumstances of the two games. Both were being led by a high-profile director (Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune for MML3) before they left their respective companies. Both stood to revitalise series which hadn't been relevant in years. Both had a preview or demo version which is not available anymore, if at all (Legends 3 Prototype and P.T.). And both happened to have been followed up by Kickstarter projects seeking to bring a new games based on their companies' good old days. (Okay, so Castlevania creator Koji Igarashi wasn't actually involved in Silent Hills, but shut up, I've got a good theme going.) Is this the future of the games industry? Or is this all just a coincidence? Heck if I know.

Now, I didn't have the same emotional investment for Silent Hills as I did for MML3. At the moment, I've only played a bit of the first Silent Hill game (PSone, 1999), and I've heard good things about Silent Hill 2 (PS2, 2001). (Seriously, on the rare occasions when Yahtzee recommends a game, he's never steered me wrong.) I am aware, however, of how the Silent Hill franchise, as well as the survival-horror genre in macrocosm, have lost sight of the subtleties that made it so effective way back when. And given the series' track record, maybe Silent Hills would have reversed its course back in a positive direction, or maybe it wouldn't have. But man, it would've been great if it did. It might even have brought new fans on board, including yours truly. As it stands, I may not have been on board with the whole Silent Hills thing, but y'all have my sympathies.

So what was the point of this diversionary anecdote, other than to provide my two cents on the issue? Well, the moral to draw from both those stories is that we should support independent works of media. You won't see the big American animation studios doing a hand-drawn character drama, and you won't see the big Japanese video game studios reviving the styles of games which made them famous back in the day. I mean, even though Mighty No.9 may not be the ideal replacement for Legends 3, I'd still give my money to its independent makers than to Capcom. And now that the World Wide Web and social media are things, we the people have the power to give these low-profile works the attention they deserve. I mean it when I say...

This is IchigoRyu.

You are the resistance.

Film Review: The Wind Rises

Previously on the SDP, I discussed the Studio Ghibli film The Wind Rises on two occasions. First, I discussed its ramifications in the context of the Japanese political right, and second, I lamented its lack of exposure and acclaim from my own country. But between the time I first saw it in theatres and when I got to re-watch it on home video, The Wind Rises became, to me, less of an actual product and more of an icon, an ideal, something I chose to stand for. But now that it finally came out on home video and I've had a chance to re-watch it, how does it stand against my mind's interpretation of it?

The Wind Rises

• Publisher: Toho (JP), Touchstone Pictures (US) 
• Studio: Studio Ghibli 
• Genre: Drama 
• Release: 20 July 2013 (JP), 21 February 2014 (US) 
• Director: Hayao Miyazaki 
• Producer: Toshio Suzuki 
• Writer: Hayao Miyazaki

The Wind Rises bills itself as a fictionalised biography of a one Jiro Horikoshi (EN: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, JP: Hideaki Anno), a Japanese airplane designer active in the 1920s and '30s. Sounds like a boring idea for an animated movie, doesn't it? Well if you thought that, A) you suck, and B) Studio Ghibli has ways to punch it up every once in a while. At points throughout the movie, the plot is intercut with Jiro's dreams, where he interacts with a mister Giovanni Caproni (EN: Stanley Tucci, JP: Nomura Mansai), a real-life Italian plane designer who inspires him to embark down a similar path in life. And indeed Jiro does go down that path, studying aviation in high school and eventually landing a job with the Mitsubishi company, all the while accompanied by his friend Kiro Honjo (EN: John Krasinski, JP: Hidetoshi Nishijima).

The character of Honjo stuck out to me, in what few scenes he took part in, because of his commentary on the state of Japan at the time. This movie takes place, at the latest, half a century after the Meiji Revolution brought Japan back onto the world stage, but even then, the nation's industry and modernisation was a work in progress. The Japanese of the time might have been able to make airplanes, but they were still using wood-and-canvas frames whereas their peers in Germany, the United States, and what-have-you had advanced to full-metal models. Perhaps this state of affairs is best encapsulated in an observation Honjo makes, that they still use oxen to transport prototype planes to the takeoff/landing site. It's as if the whole of Japan is a character in and of itself, having its own character arc and all that.

So as you witness this transition take place over the course of the movie, you'd be forgiven for thinking The Wind Rises is taking a nationalistic standpoint on history. You may also feel troubled if you know your basic 20th century history, because this development also led to the Japanese Empire thinking it could get away with bringing its neighbours under its fold -- the hard way. But The Wind Rises is surprisingly apolitical about the whole thing. If anything, it's against war in general, which for the record is also the point of Miyazaki-sama himself. There are a few lines in the script when Jiro states disapproval of how his creations were used for such destruction, but at the end of the day he is proud of his contributions to the field of aviation. As he and Signior Caproni discussed in one of their dreams, he'd still rather live in a world with the dreams of aviation realised. There's even a moment when Jiro discusses how to cut the weight from one of his models, and he half-jokingly suggests they take out the guns altogether. But, I ask of Horikoshi-san, if you don't want your planes to be used for war, then what, pray tell, is their purpose? It's not like these planes can carry a suitable volume of passengers for peaceful air travel! What did you think would happen when you decided to design fighter planes!? Oh well, you know what they say -- the road to Heck is paved with frozen door-to-door salesmen -- I mean, good intentions.

The Jiro/Naoko romance scenes are sweet, but have little impact on the plot.

So going through the movie, Jiro's career goes through a few ups and downs, until one particular failure causes him to take a sabbatical at a mountain resort, wherein he meets up with Naoko Satomi (EN: Emily Blunt, JP: Miori Takimoto). The two spark up a romance in due time, which goes unextinguished even when he learns that she suffers from tuberculosis, thus casting a shadow of impermanance over their relationship. My problem with this romantic sub-plot is that it doesn't exactly have any say on the main plot of Jiro's career, which especially jarring considering that it doesn't start until about an hour in to the film's runtime. And, in fact, it never even happened to the real Jiro Horikoshi. This little diversion comes from a novel also titled "The Wind Rises", written by Tatsuo Hori in 1937. (Hori-san is, at least, given a dedication slide at the end of the film, along with Horikoshi-san.) Remember when I said this movie was a "fictionalised biography"? Yeah, that's why.

It is a perfectly fine romance, don't get me wrong. I like a good tug at the ol' heartstrings every once in a while, and indeed the Jiro/Naoko sub-plot does this every once in a while, for example when he hears about her lung haemmorhage, or when his boss conducts an impromptu wedding for the young couple. All in all, it still leaves me with a warm and fuzzy feeling, and as my praise for the similarly emotional Kaleido Star indicates, this is a positive quality in my book. But you could cut out Naoko's scenes and not only would The Wind Rises not suffer for it, but it would bring the film's 127-minute running time down to a more manageable length.

Whilst on the subject of this film's flaws, I thought the English voice cast was a tad hit-or-miss. Actually, I can think of only one miss, but it's a big one. Maybe Joseph Gordon-Levitt wasn't the best choice for this role. Why couldn't this Honjo guy have been the main character? Or at the very least, why couldn't his actor have portrayed Jiro instead of Mr. JGL? The same goes for the Japanese track, where the lead character is played by Hideaki Anno, of all people. (If you don't know, this guy created numerous anime series back in the day, and was even an employee at Studio Ghibli once.) There are more engaging performances sprinkled among the supporting cast, such as the aforementioned Honjo-san, Jiro's boss Mr. Kurokawa (EN: Martin Short, JP: Masahiko Nishimura), and his sister Kayo (EN: Mae Whitman, JP: Mirai Shida).

Dream sequences and other visualisations demonstrate the animation prowess of Studio Ghibli.

The Wind Rises is a Studio Ghibli production, so I shouldn't have to tell you how good this movie looks. What few scenes of fast action exist in this movie are animated realistically, yet dynamically at the same time. There are some moments where I wondered if the animators used rotoscoping techniques, and I mean that in a good way. But the film isn't entirely grounded in reality; some scenes take place in the dreams of Jiro and Caproni, as I previously mentioned, and other scenes apply a layer of similar dreamlike visualizations onto otherwise ordinary moments, illustrating Jiro's thought process and what-not. For example, in one scene where Jiro is drafting a design for a certain plane component, we see the finished plane flying in a clear sky, and the wind rustling the pages on his desk. And yet no one seems to notice them... But anyway. these visualisations serve two purposes: they make for visually creative shots, and they explain technical concepts for the laymen of the audience. The score is also magnificent, although I'd expect nothing less from composer Joe Hisaishi, who has worked with Ghibli for a long time. I don't know about you, but I'm a sucker for dramatic scenes where the music is a slow buildup and the sound-effect track is muted entirely. (See also: the opera shootout in Quantum of Solace.)

So if I'm able to find so many flaws upon re-watching this movie, why am I still willing to stand up for it? Well, to put it in one word, it's real. It's not trying to be anything it's not, which is especially notable for an animated feature. You know how Frozen, for example, had musical numbers, comic relief characters, and a romantic sub-plot entirely separate from the rest of the movie? Yeah, The Wind Rises ain't having any of that. Except for that last one... bad example, that. My point is, this story could have fit very well as a live-action film, but Miyazaki chose to have it animated because A) animation is what he's good at, and B) this movie is the story he wanted to tell. And to those who say, "Why did it have to be animated?", I say to them, "Why not?"

Positives:
+ Plenty of emotional moments which left me with a warm and fuzzy feeling.
+ An interesting and well-acted supporting cast.

Negatives:
- The Jiro/Naoko romantic sub-plot could have been left out.
- The lead actor's performance is a tad wooden, both in Japanese and English.

Acting (English): 4 airplanes out of 5
Acting (Japanese): 4 airplanes out of 5
Writing: 4 airplanes out of 5
Animation: 5 airplanes out of 5
Visual Design: 5 airplanes out of 5
The Call: 90% (A-)

P.S.: After I started work on writing this review, it has come to my attention that Hayao Miyazaki, among two others, had won an Academy Honorary Award in November of 2014.[1]  For those who don't know, these awards are given at judges' discretion separately from the regular Oscars, but involve the same statuettes given to winners at the regular ceremony. After having been so unfairly snubbed by the Oscars earlier in the year, I suppose hearing about this development has put my soul at ease a bit. I mean, you could interpret that as him winning the award for all of his films! All the same, for the sake of my mental health, I'm probably going to ignore the Oscars from here on out, or at least the Best Animated Feature category. Wouldn't wan't to have my hopes dashed like that again. I suppose this younger, more worldy generation will make the kinds of changes once we get into positions of power, but until then, I'll leave you with these words:

This is IchigoRyu.

You are the resistance.

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[1] "Harry Belafonte, Hayao Miyazaki, Maureen O’Hara to get honorary Oscars". Entertainment Weekly. 28 August 2014, retrieved 15 January 2015. http://insidemovies.ew.com/2014/08/28/harry-belafonte-hayao-miyazaki-maureen-ohara-to-get-honorary-oscars/

Editorial: The Wind Rises (Part 2)

Previously on the SDP, I editorialised on Hayao Miyazaki's animated film The Wind Rises, which I had not even seen at the time.  Well, now I have, and further developments have forced me back on my virtual soapbox.

Let's take a trip back a month, to the 86th Academy Awards.  (Or look it up on Wikipedia if you can't be bothered to find a time machine.)  And the winner of the Best Animated Feature award goes to... Frozen!  Oh, you mean the new Disney film?  Yeah, that was awesome, wasn't it?  Worth every bit of the sensation it caused in our culture!  Let's see, what other nominees did it beat out?  Despicable Me 2?  Bah.  The Croods?  Meh.  If it weren't for Disney and company, I'd say the animation industry is finished.

...?  What's this?  Something called The Wind Rises was also nominated?  Wow, you think the Academy would gravitate to something like this, like they do with the live-action films.  And this situation is no outlier, either; I have disagreed with their decisions many times before:

• 80th Academy Awards (2007): The winner was Pixar's Ratatouille.  Among the nominees, I would've preferred Persepolis.  Or Satoshi Kon's Paprika, which was not even nominated.  Hell, I would've given the nod to The Simpsons Movie (also not nominated) before Ratatouille!
• 82nd Academy Awards (2009): The winner was Pixar's Up.  Among the nominees, I would've preferred The Secret of Kells or Disney's The Princess and the Frog.
• 84th Academy Awards (2011): The winner was Rango.  Among the nominees... gotta be honest, nothing really stood out to me this go-around.  Maybe Chico & Rita...?

You may have noticed a pattern that I prefer to advocate non-American animation, as evidenced by the trend of Persepolis (France), The Secret of Kells (Ireland/France/Belgium), and Chico & Rita (Spain).  They are not burdened by the "Animation Age Ghetto" that has become ingrained in the American concsiousness.  We, as in the general populace of my country, regard animation as no more than a commodity for a purely child audience.  It should be no surprise, then, that I hold anime productions from Japan in much the same regard.  But despite 2013's award having precendence, this was the straw which broke the proverbial camel's back.  Need I remind you, ladies and gentlemen, that The Wind Rises was to be the final film directed by Hayao Miyazaki, by then aged into his 70s.  Furthermore, the whole of Studio Ghibli announced it would go on (hopefully temporary) hiatus, upon the completion of their latest announced projects.  So, watching the film with that context alone is bittersweet enough, without the added burden of knowing it would not be recognised with all the honours it deserved.

Miyazaki-sama and Studio Ghibli have won in this category only once before, with 2002's Spirited Away (in, admittedly, an otherwise weak batch of nominees).  Furthermore, The Wind Rises has far more serious, reality-grounded subject matter that one doesn't normally associate with animation.  If it were a live-action film competing against others, I get the feeling it might have stood a better chance.  But no, because we're all too chicken-[noun] to venture out of our comfort zone, we bestow praise upon the mediocre while the true cutting edge is marginalised and forgotten.  

So yeah, you know how there's a running gag that it's the more artsy films which do best at the Oscars?  Well if that's true, it sure as Sean Connery ain't true in the animation department!  To be fair, the Best Animated Feature award doesn't get as much buzz and speculation as the general categories do.  But that just raises the same problem in a different light: we don't treat animation seriously enough to give it the same attention as live-action filmmaking.  But enough about that.  I suppose the question remaining is: Did Frozen really deserve the award?  Let's answer the question with a couple of brief reviews.

First, The Wind Rises.  Whilst my previous article on the subject was focused on its politics, I'm willing to chuck that all aside for fear of repeating myself.  The film is a fictionalised biography of airplane designer Jiro Horikoshi, with elements of author Tatsuo Hori thrown in for good measure.  As he is portrayed in this film, Horikishi-san grew up in a Japan struggling to catch up with the other major world industries.  During his youth, he starts having dreams wherein he interacts with a mister Giovanni Caproni, an Italian airplane designer, and vows to follow in his footsteps.  Through these dreams -- which, might I add, punch up the plot with a much-valued touch of whimsy -- Jiro's motives are revealed: all he wants to do is develop something which his country can be proud of.  Yes, his planes, the Mitsubishi A5M and (not seen in the film) A6M "Zero" were used by a horriffic war machine, but he had no direct desire for that.  Sometimes, the most controversial inventions in this world were simply products of altruism.

Interspersed with all this, he meets a girl named Naoko in the aftermath of the 1923 Kanto earthquake.  They reunite years later and make plans for marriage, only to discover that she has contracted tuberculosis and may not be long for this world.  This being the case, they make the most of their romance.  I don't want to call it boring, because that would only react poorly on my attention span.  I'll just say that their choice of two interwoven yet independent storylines doesn't make for good dramatic flow.  But who am I to say what stories should or shouldn't do?  At least taken on their own, these stories are teriffic.  I'll conclude by giving The Wind Rises a score of 95% (A) and a Dragon Award, and saying that, just barely, I respect it more than I like it.

And now, Frozen.  Our story opens with a pair of sister princesses, Anna and Elsa, the latter of whom has the power to control snow and ice.  But after accidentally injuring Anna with such, their parents decide to wipe Anna's memories of the affair, and lock up Elsa until her coronation as queen.  During the affair, Elsa's powers slip out, she runs away, and Anna gives chase in the hopes of talking some sense into here.  I'm not gonna lie, this film starts off on a real strong note.  To see what I mean, check out one of the opening songs, "Do You Want To Build A Snowman", which contrasts Anna's optimism and Elsa's fears.  But does Frozen follow through on this initial momentum?

Thinking back to another Disney animated feature, I remember recently watching 1996's The Hunchback of Notre Dame for the first time in years.  Having since kicked off this very blog and honed my critical mind, I fell in love for what this movie did, and I would've awarded it a perfect score -- but for the incongruous comic relief forced upon us by the little gargoyles.  I was afraid Frozen would suffer a similar dichotomy, and it does, although to a smaller degree.  When the film focuses on Elsa's inner conflict, it does a good job at that.  I sometimes wish it would focus on that instead of diverting our attention with characters such as the animate snowman Olaf (although I must admit I found his schtick, his self-destructive longing for warm things, to be genuinely funny), and with the Anna-Hans-Kristoff long-distance love triangle.  While I'm nitpicking, the ending is a tad cheesy, the villain reveal is rather obviously telegraphed halfway into the film, and none of the musical numbers stuck with me.  Oh, except "Let It Go" -- that was awesome.  Still, what Frozen does well, it does wonderfully.  I think I can sleep soundly after giving it a score of 85% (B-) and saying that, just barely, I like it more than I respect it.

So having compared the two films, I have to admit I'm comfortable with the Best Animated Feature award going to either one or the other.  ...At least, that's what I would have said before I chanced upon this little article from the website Cartoon Bomb ¹ (original source: Hollywood Reporter ²).  Out of seven judges interviewed, three voted for Frozen because it was the only movie they cared to watch, and the other four abstained from voting for similar reasons.  And I'm like...  I'm... shocked and appalled.  I can't even bring myself to do another one of those Atomic F-Bombs; that's how stunned I am.  We're talking a mental Blue Screen of Death here.  And it wasn't even a case of bribery or some other corruption -- at least I would've accepted that.  But nope, they just couldn't be arsed!  I first heard about this report from a piece of The Wind Rises fanart on deviantART. ³  I had the following conversation with the artist who made it:

SpyHunter29: rtil, regarding the Academy's open-quote decision end-quote, have you considered making a change.org petition asking for a re-vote?  Yeah, the Devil's Advocate in me wonders if this is the point where the fan's sense of entitlement has gone too far, but screw that guy!  Wouldn't you want it just for the sake of them doing their job properly?  And if they did do a re-vote having given all the films their fare share and Frozen still comes out on top, then I'll accept that.

But until then, the day I heard about this leak was one of the saddest days I can remember, second only to when Mega Man Legends 3 got cancelled.  But that's another story.  And for what it's worth, I hear the general Best Picture award didn't fare much better, no disrespect to 12 Years a Slave (I assume).

rtil: there's not much point in having a re-vote when some academy members simply refuse to see the films they are supposed to be voting on. i think the best thing to do is just not pay attention to the oscars and let them have them pat themselves on the back for their sham award show.

At the time, I had accepted rtil's response, but even now, the desire to change the world in this regard still burns in my heart.  ...Of course, such fires would no doubt just end up doused by my own laziness, so forget about it.  Oh well, I guess I'll just sit here and brood in the discontent brought upon by my displeasure for the Animation Age Ghetto, which I may or may not have brought up before.  See, if we as a culture would just treat animated features with the same respect as their live-action counterparts, we wouldn't be in this predicament, and The Wind Rises may very well have won the Oscar it deserved.  But such is the world we live in that, if the Hollywood studios are an accurate representation of the market they serve, all we want are the same rehashed fairy tales over and over again, without any acknowledgement that maybe, just maybe, some of us have grown out of them.

But as I said about Pitbull, of all people, when you do the same thing over and over, you nonetheless hone some sort of skill in such.  Ever since 2009's The Princess and the Frog, which I guess we can call the last hurrah for traditional animation in America, Disney's been going through a phase of giving their world-famous princesses a higher degree of agency in terms of their respective plots.  They do stuff now, is what I'm saying.  Still, knowing what I know about other markets (read: anime), this comes across not so much as Disney stepping out of their comfort zone as it is them looking out the window into another adjacent comfort zone.  But the bare minimum of progress seems to have paid off -- as of the time I post this, Frozen is officially the best-selling animated motion picture of all time. ⁴  We're talking more than a billion dollars worldwide, peoples, And before you ask, The Wind Rises was highly successful in its home land, grossing over US$110 million during its run to become the best-selling Japanese film of 2013.  But its draw in America?  A paltry $5 million. ⁵

With that in mind, is it too much for me to ask that we, as the people of one nation, become more willing to branch out and consume the media of a land not our own?  ...Sorry, that's my Devil's Advocate talking again.  I hate that guy.  Of course it's not too much for me to ask!  As evidenced by the jurors' leaked comments, we have a very narrow concept of a medium that has so much more to offer.  I mean, an animated feature this based in reality?  No one over here would have the balls to attempt that, I can tell you!  With the likes of The Wind Rises, a new way forward for the animation industry has opened -- but we chose not to enter the door.  I weep for you, America.  And I'm not saying Frozen is terrible, either -- it's quite good, in fact.  It's just not billion-dollar good, or Best Animated Feature good.  As such, given the circumstances, I hereby state that I refuse to acknowledge Frozen as the recipient of the 2014 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, and instead consider The Wind Rises as such.  It's my blog, I can do whatever I want.

PS: Yes, I left out one of the nominees, the Franco-Belgian Ernest & Celestine.  I'll be honest, I'd never heard about that one before, but it only serves to illustrate my point about the stranglehold the Hollywood machine has on our media.

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¹ Amidi, Amid.  "Definitive Proof That Academy Voters Are Ignorant About Animation".  Cartoon Brew, 2 March 2014.  http://www.cartoonbrew.com/award-season-focus/definitive-proof-that-academy-voters-are-ignorant-about-animation-96680.html.

² Anonymous, told to Feinberg, Scott.  "Oscar Voter Reveals Brutally Honest Ballot".  Hollywood Reporter, 26 February 2014.  http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/oscar-voter-reveals-brutally-honest-682957.

³ rtil.  "'The Wind Rises".  deviantART, 12 March 2014.  http://rtil.deviantart.com/art/The-Wind-Rises-439874007.

⁴ Amidi, Amid.  "'Frozen' Just Became The Highest-Grossing Animated Film Ever".  Cartoon Brew, 30 March 2014.  http://www.cartoonbrew.com/disney/frozen-just-became-the-highest-grossing-animated-film-ever-97992.html.

⁵ Box Office Mojo.  "The Wind Rises (2014)".  Box Office Mojo, 9 April 2014. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/default.htm?id=windrises.htm.

Editorial: The Wind Rises

So, you guys love Studio Ghibli, right? Well, they've got another film which made the rounds in Japan and should soon be on its way abroad. It's called The Wind Rises, and it's a embellished biography of a mister Jiro Horikoshi, a 20th-century Japanese plane designer. The plot follows how he survived the 1923 Kanto Earthquake, and went on to develop such planes as the Mitsubishi A5M and (not seen in the movie) A6M, known in World War II as the "Zero". Said movie is being directed by none other than Hayao Miyazaki, who at the age of 72 has announced that this will be his final film. (For real this time.) So given its historical insight, technical pedigree, and the simple fact that it's an anime film to be shown in mainstream American cinemas, you can bet your bottom dollar (yen?) that this'll be on my must-see list.

...

OR WILL IT?

See, The Wind Rises comes at an unfortunate point in Japan's real-world occurrences. The country is currently involved in numerous territorial disputes. China and Taiwan are making advances on the Senkaku Islands, whilst Japan is making its own claims on the Liancourt Rocks (owned by South Korea) and the Kuril Islands (owned by Russia; for the record, this particular argument is considerably more peaceable). Right-wing Japanese politicians, including Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, are considering changes to the country's constitution to cancel limitations on their armed forces, a result of World War II, have made public visits to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which both honours Japan's war dead and houses the ashes of war criminals convicted after WWII, and are shrugging off South Korean & Chinese demands for recognition and restitution for Japan's crimes committed before and during the war. (For their part, the Japanese claim the latter has already been resolved back when they established diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1965.)

With all this being the case, the implication would be that Miyazaki-sama is also in this boat. The movie depicts the creator of war machines that were used extensively by the Tojo war machine. You know, the same one that committed grave atrocities in China, Korea, and the Pacific? Ergo, this is the connection being trumpeted by groups such as South Korean netizens, who in all honesty have maintained a degree of anti-Japanese sentiment for a long time now. And by portraying a key component of said war machine without the negative consequences of its actions, not to mention neglecting the fact that Mitsubishi drafted 10,000 Koreans and/or Chinese as slave labour to build said planes, does the subject matter of The Wind Rises come across as insensitive at best?

Well... the truth isn't always that simple. Those of us who actually saw the darn film (or red its synopsis on Wikipedia) would know that when the film finally gets to depicting WWII, it's not exactly in a positive light. Apparently, the message the film portrays after all is said and done is that war is futile (understandably so; you'd say that too if you were on the losing side of a war). As a matter of fact, the right-wingers of Japan have themselves taken issue with Miyazaki-sama's own anti-war stance, exhibited both here and in earlier works like Nausicaä and Grave of the Fireflies (the latter directed by Isao Takahata). More to the point, Miyazaki has made the following disapproving statements about the aformentioned attempts to rewrite the constitution, in a letter for Studio Ghibli's in-house magazine:

"It goes without saying that I am against constitutional reform. [...] I'm taken aback by the lack of knowledge among government and political party leaders on historical facts. People who don't think enough shouldn't meddle with the constitution."

Oh, and off the record, I for one am willing to accept these lessening of constitutional restrictions on Japan's military -- IF and ONLY IF the lawmakers start owning up to the mistakes of their ancestors. I mean, seriously guys, it's not like you committed the atrocities personally, that was ages ago! What've you got to lose!? And hey, it's not like we Americans are innocent of whitewashing our own history! Pocahontas says hi. Then again, I don't believe there are any talking animals involved in The Wind Rises, so I suppose the whitewashing will only go so far this time around.

So, with all that said, would I still be willing to endorse this movie by purchasing a ticket?

...

It's Studio [verb]ing Ghibli, of course I'll see it! Seriously, it would take a lot of wrongdoing for me to forgo something like this in favour of the latest animated Hollywood drivel. (Seriously, Free Birds, what is this, 2006?) And works like this and From Up On Poppy Hill (which, sadly, only got a limited release in America... RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE) show that Studio Ghibli themselves are branching out into new concepts. Whilst the company is known for its more fantastical fare, their two latest films represent a shift towards more grounded, historical, and personal subject matter. Yet at the same time, the animation style maintains the company's traditional whimsy, contributing just the right amount of a softened edge so that maybe we can forget the fact the actions of Jiro Horikoshi were used by an unspeakably evil force, and just absorb ourselves in his personal dramas. Walt Disney Pictures has announced plans to dub The Wind Rises and show it in America some time in 2014, so when it arrives, you can bet your bottom dollar (yen?) that I'll be there.

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McCurry, Justin. "Japanese animator under fire for film tribute to warplane designer." The Guardian, 22 August 2013 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/23/hayao-miyazaki-film-wind-rises.