From Up on Poppy Hill

Year of Release:  2011
Director:  Goro Miyazaki
Screenplay: Hayao Miyazaki and Keiko Niwa, based on the manga From Up on Coquelicot Hill by Tetsuro Sayama and Chizuru Takahashi
Starring:  Masami Nagasawa, Junichi Okada, Keiko Takeshita, Yuriko Ishida, Jun Fubiki, Takashi Naiko, Shunsuke Kazama, Nao Omori, Teruyuki Kagawa
Running Time: 91 minutes
Genre:  animation, comics, drama, coming of age, romance

This animated film from Japan's legendary Studio Ghibli, is set in Yokohama, in 1963.  Sixteen year old Umi Matsuzaki (Nagasawa) balances schoolwork with helping to run the boarding house where she lives with her younger sisters and her grandmother.  At school, she meets Shun Kazama (Okada) who writes for the school newspaper and is heavily involved in a student campaign to save a large ramshackle building which houses the school's various clubs, from demolition.  While at first she dislikes Shun, Umi becomes drawn into the campaign to save the building, and she and Shun draw increasingly close.

This is a gentle, nostalgic, romantic, coming-of-age drama.  In contrast to better known Studio Ghibli films, such as My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Kiki's Delivery Service (1989) and Spirited Away (2001) this features no supernatural or fantasy elements whatsoever.  Co-scripted by acclaimed writer/director Hayao Miyazaki, from a 1980s manga, it was directed by Hayao Miyazaki's son, Goro, whose previous directorial credit was Tales From Earthsea (2006).  This is not one of the best Studio Ghibli films, but it is still a more than respectable addition to their hallowed filmography.  It's a gentle, sweet film, devoid of conflict, depicting a kinder world in lush vibrant colours, however it doesn't ignore some of the darker aspects of 1950s and 60s Japan.  While some of the animation isn't as polished as some of the other Ghibli films, and towards the end there is maybe one plot contrivance too many, this is still a great film for children and adults.

"There's no future for people who worship the future, and forget the past." - Shun Kazama (Junichi Okada)

     
From Up on Poppy Hill
      

The Wind Rises

Year of Release:  2013
Director:  Hayao Miyazaki
Screenplay:  Hayao Miyazaki, based on the manga Kaze Tachinu by Hayao Miyazaki
Starring:  Hideaki Anno, Miori Takimoto, Hidetoshi Nishjima, Masahiko Nishimura, Stephen Alpert, Morio Kazama
Running Time:  126 minutes
Genre:  animation, biography

This animated film from acclaimed writer/director Hayao Miyazaki, tells the story of Jiro Horikoshi (Anno), who dreams of flying, and aware that he can never become a pilot due to his poor eyesight, decides to become an aeroplane designer, under the influence of celebrated Italian aircraft designer Count Caproni (Alpert).

The film tells Horikoshi's story from childhood until the end of World War II, taking in the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, and his doomed romance with the beautiful Naoko (Takimoto). This is a beautiful film, featuring some of the most stunning animation to be seen on screen. The film shows one of the main dichotomies of Miyazaki's work, an avowed pacifist, he has a fascination with the machinery of war, particularly aircraft.  The film depicts flight as a "cursed dream" evolving from pure, honorable motives, but corrupted for military purposes.

This shows the ability of animated film to depict drama in a way that live action film can't.  Moving between Horikoshi's dreams and reality, it's vibrant images make the past come alive.  It may be too slow-moving for some, and it's debatable how close it sticks to the real story (I'm no expert on the real story, but by all accounts it does take liberties with Jiro Horikoshi's real life), but it is a beautiful and powerful film, with a stunningly moving climax.  Miyazaki has said that he was inspired to make the film by a statement from Jiro Horikoshi that "All I wanted to do was create something beautiful."  By which criteria this film is a resounding success.      
  

Jiro and Naoko in The Wind Rises

Spirited Away

Year of Release:  2001
Director:  Hayao Miyazaki
Screenplay:  Hayao Miyazaki
Starring:  Rumi Hiiragi, Miyu Irino, Mari Natsuki, Bunta Sugawara, Yumi Tamai, Tsunehiko Kamijo, Takehiko Ono, Akio Nakamura,
Running Time:  124 minutes
Genre:  fantasy, animation

This is one of the best loved films from Japan's celebrated Studio Ghibli.  Ten year old Chihiro Ogino (Hiiragi) is not happy at all about moving home and leaving her friends behind, on the way to their new house, her parents take a wrong turn and the Ogino family find themselves in what at first appears to be an abandoned theme park.  However, Chihiro soon learns that it is much more that that, when her parents start eating some food that has been left out, and become transformed into pigs.  Trapped in a bizarre fantasy world, Chihiro's only hope of changing her parents back and returning them all safely to their own world is to take a job in a bathhouse for spirits and other creatures, run by  a dangerous witch, Yubaba (Natsuki).

This was the highest grossing film in Japanese history when it was released, and won Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards.  Hayao Miyazaki came up with the idea when he spent the summer at a mountain cabin with his family and some of his ten year old daughter's friends.  During the vacation, Miyazaki read through some of the manga that the girls had brought up and was disappointed to find that it mainly focused on crushes and romance.  Feeling that this was not what the girls "held dear in their hearts", Miyazaki made Spirited Away specifically for these girls, witha  heroine they could look up to.

The animation in the film is stunning, mixing traditional hand-drawn animation with computer technology, to dazzling effect.  The animation creates a world that has texture and life to it, the food looks like it has taste and the objects look like they have weight and solidity to them.  It creates a world that is truly a self-contained fantasy world with it's own rules and laws, but that also feels strangely familiar, with such strangely haunting aspects as the lonely trains that occasionally run through the water-logged landscape.  Chihiro is an affecting lead character, initially seeming quite sullen, and whiny, she relies on her courage, intelligence, persistence and kindness to survive.  

There are several themes recurring Miyazaki themes in the film:  a strong heroine, environmental awareness, ambiguous villains, the conflict between tradition and modernity in Japan, and criticism of greed and corruption.

While not Miyazaki's best film, this is a wonderful fantasy and a classic of animation.

Chihiro finds herself Spirited Away